


To Live A Little (Expansion)

by AconitumNapellus



Series: To Live A Little [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Disabled Character, Hurt Illya, M/M, Napollya - Freeform, Slash, blind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 59,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: Illya is blind and longs for his days of being an active agent. He might be able to recapture something of his old life when the chance comes up to help Napoleon with surveillance in Cairo. (This is an expansion of the To Live a Little short I wrote.)





	1. Chapter 1

The right side of the desk was piled with print outs. That was the trouble with Braille. It took up so much space, the paper was so thick. A simple report felt like a small novel. He tried to keep each bunch of reports in its separate tray on his desk, but the piles teetered like little monoliths, and if one spilt onto the floor it took far too long to sort it all out again. He thanked god for Sarah. Although it was irritating at times having to rely on a personal assistant, at least she could sort out spills quickly. He hated feeling around for things on the floor.

He sighed and pulled another intelligence report in front of him. His fingers swept over the cover and he felt Napoleon’s name. A little warmth kindled in him. How funny that was, to _feel_ Napoleon’s name, to feel the dots of him under his fingertips, to feel the warm shiver that ran through him when he touched that beautiful combination. He knew the feel of Napoleon’s collarbones, of his broad shoulders, the stubbly line of his jaw, the curves of his ear. He knew the rich, musky scent of him and how his palms fitted perfectly over Illya’s buttocks and how soft his lips were. He had known all that for a long time. But it always gave him a little thrill to run his fingers over that unique combination of raised dots that spelt out his name. It had been worth the tedious weeks and months of learning Braille just for that.

He smiled and turned himself to the rest of the report. Maybe he was getting soft. Maybe that was what it did for a man, not being out in the field. And, oh, he missed it. His heart ached for it. The excitement, the exotic places, the scents and sounds of Morocco, Brazil, of Czechoslovakia, the damp earth smell of the Danube in the winter, the delicate sounds of a cold day in Leningrad. How he missed it all...

The report. Napoleon Solo, Theophilius Dwight. It took him a couple of sweeps of his fingers to read  _that_ name correctly. Napoleon had been in Bonn on the trail of a particularly pernicious Thrushie from South Dakota. And he had succeeded, of course, taken him in, alive, and handed him off to U.N.C.L.E. North East. So it was Illya’s job to read through all the details diligently printed off for him by Sarah on the Braille printer and to compile it all into an updated report. It wasn’t exciting, but it did at least give him memories of how life used to be.

He took a piece of paper from the correct file of the correct drawer of the filing cabinet and fed it the correct amount into the typewriter. If Sarah ever misfiled these things he would be undone; but Sarah never misfiled. He could trust absolutely that this piece of paper that he couldn’t see was the precise one needed for this type of report. So he started typing. His touch typing had always been good. It was hard not being able to look back on what he had written, but Sarah checked everything for him and he rarely made mistakes. If he did, she just uncomplainingly got another sheet and copied it out correctly herself.

The door bumped open. Illya closed his eyes and kept his last typed words in his head, and said, ‘Wait.’ He needed to be left alone when he was doing this. He needed to remember what he had just written and think of what he was about to write, and concentrate until he had reached the end. He heard Napoleon – he knew it was Napoleon, oh how he knew it – walk over to his own desk, creeping, almost silent, and Illya kept typing. Then he moaned and dropped his hands.

‘It’s no good,’ he said, lifting his head, turning his ear towards the small and beautiful sounds of Napoleon here, just a few yards away from him. ‘I never could concentrate when you walked into a room.’

Napoleon laughed and came over to stand behind him and put his hands on Illya’s shoulders. He laid a kiss on the top of his head.

‘Never mind, _tovarisch_ ,’ he said. ‘I’ll read it back to you and get you back on track. But now, do you have time for coffee?’

Illya smiled. He rolled his shoulder blades and felt his spine pop. Then he stood up and cocked an ear and asked, ‘Are we alone?’

‘Completely,’ Napoleon promised him. ‘I locked the door.’

So Illya turned around and slipped his arms about Napoleon’s waist, and kissed him. His coat was cold from the cold outside, and Napoleon’s lips were cold too, and Illya warmed them. Napoleon’s arms enfolded him and the length of his body pressed against Illya’s, their knees touched and their hips touched and Illya’s chest pressed against Napoleon’s beautifully solid chest. The inside of his mouth was hot and rich and his taste was so familiar, and Illya ran the tip of his tongue over each of Napoleon’s clean teeth. He stroked a hand over the short hairs at the back of Napoleon’s neck and nuzzled his lips against Napoleon’s throat and gave him light, darting kisses there. Napoleon’s hands brushed through his light hair and sent electricity sparking through him as his fingers traced the nape of Illya’s neck.

Then he leant his head against Napoleon’s shoulder and just stood there, hugging him, taking in the reality of him. He smelt of cigarette smoke and air travel and exhaust fumes, of aftershave and Brylcreem, and fainter behind that there was something spicy, coffee and ginger. He was fresh back from Bonn. His report had preceded him.

‘You’ve been away too long,’ Illya murmured. The scent of Napoleon made a little knife of pain inside him. God how he missed those days. He missed being able to see so hard sometimes.

Napoleon’s hand ruffled the hair at the back of his head, and he kissed him again, long and slow.

‘I missed you too,’ Napoleon said. ‘I always miss you. Will you come for coffee?’

‘The commissary?’ Illya asked, and Napoleon groaned a little.

‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘It’s just it’s hardly private. After a twelve hour flight I need coffee, but I need you too, god, I need you.’

‘Well, then, Vecchio’s,’ Illya said, using the opportunity to nibble at Napoleon’s earlobe. It tasted of salt, and a little of shaving cream. ‘You can have me later, all of me, but for now we can get a little privacy at Vecchio’s.’

‘Vecchio’s,’ Napoleon agreed. There were booth seats and Vecchio knew them too well, and always let them take the one right at the back, shaded by potted plants.

‘Where’s my cane?’ Illya asked, feeling for it.

‘You should chain that thing to your wrist, the amount you lose it,’ Napoleon said affectionately. He gave it to Illya and Illya slipped on his dark glasses, and he took Napoleon’s arm to walk out of the office. That was one good thing about all of this. He could walk around town all day with his arm linked in Napoleon’s, and no one cared. No one told a blind man he couldn’t touch his companion.

So he walked with Napoleon through the echoing corridors of HQ and handed his badge in at reception and followed Napoleon’s arm out and up the stairs from Del Floria’s and into the chill of the streets outside. His cane tapped sharply on the sidewalk, the sound so clear in the crisp cold. The air had that metallic taste of deep winter, and Illya imagined thick, low clouds laden with snow pressing hard against the high rises of the city. He tilted his head and asked, ‘Nimbostratus?’

Napoleon laughed. ‘How did you know?’

Illya shrugged. ‘It feels like snow. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong.’

‘You’re incredible,’ Napoleon said, and Illya felt a small itch of discomfort. He didn’t mind it so much from Napoleon, but he hated it when the women in U.N.C.L.E. cooed over him, about how amazing it was that he could tell them apart just by their voices (as if they didn’t recognise their friends on the phone), that he could make his way from his office and all around HQ without sight (as if they couldn’t walk around their apartments in the dark of night), that he could read  _ those tiny bumps  _ with such fluency (as if he hadn’t spent miserable weeks and weeks and weeks of learning and getting it wrong and getting it wrong again, until finally it clicked.)

At Vecchio’s they sat in their secluded booth seat and it was fine for Illya to lay his hand on top of Napoleon’s on the table, and underneath Napoleon’s knees bumped his and their feet touched toes. All Illya could think about was after work when they could go back to their apartment and be in utter familiarity, where he could walk around and know exactly where everything was, but most of all he would know exactly where Napoleon was, because Napoleon would be underneath him, hot and beautiful and naked, and he would be everything Illya wanted.

‘Are you going to tell me how many bruises you came home with, or will I have to find out later?’ Illya asked. He could always find Napoleon’s bruises. They didn’t feel any different to the rest of his skin, but Napoleon could never hide that minute flinch when Illya passed his fingers firmly over the top of them.

‘Not too many,’ Napoleon promised. ‘Just a few on the ribs, and a big one on my calf where he kicked me. He came in pretty easy.’

He imagined how those bruises would look, little storm clouds over the pink-gold flesh colour of Napoleon’s chest. Under his fingers they would be smooth, just like the rest of him, and Napoleon would wince, and Illya would count his ribs and work out where not to touch him for a while.

‘You didn’t get tied up, hung up, locked up?’

‘Not this time.’

God, did he even miss being hung up by his arms? It was a perverse life, being an agent.

‘Take me with you next time,’ he said impulsively.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon warned.

‘Oh, Napoleon, take me with you,’ Illya said again. ‘I don’t want to come on a mission. I know I can’t. But let me be with you on the aeroplane, in the hotel, in a soft top car from the airport. Take me with you. I’ll rub liniment into your bruises when you get back at night. I’ll – I’ll field your calls and – ’

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said again. ‘You know how dangerous that would be.’

‘I know everything about how dangerous it is,’ Illya said impatiently. After all, how long had he been an active agent? ‘You know that. But I keep up my training. I’m still at the top of the ranks in unarmed combat.’

‘Offence,’ Napoleon said very deliberately. ‘Only in offence, Illya, in full-contact disciplines. You can’t anticipate blows. You can’t dodge them and parry them. You can get a man on the mat, sure, but only if you can touch him.’

‘All right,’ Illya conceded. ‘Only in offence. But that’s something, and I can strike a mean blow with that cane. It’s reinforced for combat. And I’ve been practising in the gun range, firing at audible targets. I’m getting pretty good. Oh, Napoleon...’

And then he felt it. He felt Napoleon relent.

‘I have an idea,’ Napoleon said, leaning forward, lowering his voice. ‘Listen. I have an assignment in Cairo. It’s not dangerous. It’s mostly eavesdropping. The hotel is secure – twelve storeys, manned entry. If we can persuade Waverly – ’ And there was the big stumbling block. ‘If we can persuade Waverly, perhaps you can take your brailler and stay in the hotel room and monitor the bugs while I’m out on active espionage. I’d need someone to monitor the bugs. I can’t track the guy and listen back at the hotel room at the same time.’

Was it possible? Could it really be possible? Illya let himself believe it. He sipped his espresso and imagined drinking thick Egyptian coffee, imagined stepping from the plane into the heat of the airfield, imagined staying with Napoleon again in an exotic Egyptian hotel. The stumbling blocks were small things. Waverly, and the onerous task of getting to know new surroundings, of learning a new room with a fingertip search, being trapped in one place because he couldn’t see where to go. Small things, they were, against the thought of being in the field, almost, being on a mission with Napoleon again, squeezing into a small hotel bed with him at night and drinking in the bar and eating dubious meals at strange times of day.

‘I could do it,’ he said. ‘I’m better at listening and recording than I ever was. Oh, I could...’

Napoleon’s knees rubbed his under the table. Napoleon put his other hand on top of Illya’s, and pressed.

‘I miss having you out there,’ he said.

Illya missed everything. He missed being able to see Napoleon’s face. He missed running all alone, he missed driving so much, he missed colours and pure light and the graceful ease with which the sighted did everything. He missed feeling so, so alive with the bullets flying over his head. He missed it all. If he let himself think about it it became too much, so he felt Napoleon’s hands instead, felt the little shush of his pulse through his fingertips, took in the delicate scent of him and the small sounds of his breathing. He drained his cup of coffee and felt for his cane, and Napoleon laughed and gave it to him and said, ‘I told you you should chain it to your wrist.’

And he took Napoleon’s arm and walked out into the clamorous New York street, where the chill of winter pressed around him and the light felt thin and pale on his face, and he dared to think that perhaps he might be able to live a little again.

  


((O))

  


‘So I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ Del Floria called after them as they left the little tailor’s shop, and Illya asked Napoleon, ‘Where are you parked?’

Napoleon laughed. ‘Nowhere,  _mon cher._ I came straight from the airport. Shall I hail a cab?’

Illya sighed a little, and nodded. He had been looking forward to driving with Napoleon. He had been taking cabs all week, and the cab drivers were usually kind and very helpful, but he just liked driving with Napoleon, especially with the top down on a dry day.

‘Tomorrow morning,’ Napoleon promised him. ‘But it’s too cold to walk and since you hate the subway – ’

‘I do not hate the subway, Napoleon,’ Illya objected instantly. ‘I just find it – unnerving – nowadays.’

He shuddered a little. He had always liked travelling on the subway, watching the commuters and making silent judgements about them, listening to buskers, sometimes chatting with a seat mate. But since becoming blind he did, as he said, find it unnerving. It was too cramped and claustrophobic, people jostled and hurried with no thought to anyone else, and the sheer edge of the platforms and the thoughtless speeding trains that surged past just seemed too dangerous.

‘Well, then, since you find the subway _unnerving_ and it’ll be too crowded this time of day, we’ll take a cab this evening. After all, it’s not how we get home, but _that_ we get home. There are so many things I want to do to you at home.’

And Illya smiled and felt warm despite the freezing air.

‘Let’s walk a little,’ Napoleon said. ‘I can’t see any cabs right now. I’ll hail one the moment one heaves into sight, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Illya nodded, and he linked his arm companionably with Napoleon’s and dropped the end of the cane to the ground, because even though he didn’t really need it with Napoleon guiding him it meant people understood that he couldn’t see and they didn’t barge into him half so much. ‘The tip is frayed. I need a new one,’ he complained as he tapped it onto the sidewalk and Napoleon put a hand over his for a moment to feel the vibrations and said, ‘You go through those things like a knife through hot butter.’

‘I _use_ them, Napoleon,’ Illya said lightly. ‘I use them all the time, especially when you’re not here. I used my last spare tip just before you left, and somehow this one’s just gone.’

‘You know, I think you drag it too much,’ Napoleon said, slowing his pace as if he were scrutinising Illya’s technique. ‘Aren’t you supposed to just tap that thing?’

‘I know how to use my own cane, Napoleon. I’ve had training,’ Illya replied tartly. He knew Napoleon was joking. ‘Do you want me to fall down a rabbit hole?’

‘In Manhattan? The rabbits must have sharp teeth, comrade.’

‘Do you want me to fall down a manhole, then? Or a coal hole? Or a pothole? There are so many holes to choose from.’

Napoleon gave an affectionate sigh. ‘I don’t want you to fall down anything, my love. I’ll pick you up some new tips tomorrow. A whole drawer full, if you like. How about that?’

Illya pressed his hand a little more firmly onto his arm. He missed this when Napoleon was away. He missed the banter and the tenderness that followed.

‘Thank you, Napoleon,’ he smiled. Then he asked rather apprehensively, ‘Did you manage to talk to Waverly?’

He hadn’t dared ask Napoleon yet. Napoleon had come back from a litany of catch-up tasks just as the little office clock struck five, and Illya had been packing up his things, and he was half afraid to ask because he was afraid of the answer.

‘I did,’ Napoleon said. He paused a little, then said, ‘And he said – perhaps.’

Illya’s heart gave a little leap. ‘Perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ Napoleon repeated.

‘A good perhaps, or a bad perhaps?’

He felt Napoleon’s shrug through his arm. ‘I don’t know. I think it was a good perhaps. He muttered something as I left about being a doddering old grandfather. That usually means he’s feeling lenient.’

‘Then there’s a chance – ’

Napoleon pressed a gloved hand over his. ‘I think there’s a chance,’ he said. ‘Just a chance.’

The possibility thrilled through Illya. It was so cold in New York at this time of year. The cold deadened the smells and snow deadened the sounds and the icy sidewalks could be treacherous to walk on when you couldn’t see. Everyone was bitten in and hurried because of the chill in the air, and when it was raining or snowing crossing roads became downright dangerous. Cairo would be warm and alive and full of new scents and sounds, and Napoleon would tell him what he saw and Illya would bask in it. It would be beautiful. He hadn’t stepped foot in another country since he had lost his sight, hadn’t even been on an aeroplane, apart from that strange terrible journey home with bandages over his face knowing that everything was over. And to think he had used to pilot Lear jets and helicopters, used to parachute through the thin, freezing air into the dark night over hostile terrain, he used to wake up in one hemisphere and go to sleep in another.

‘It won’t be a vacation, you know,’ Napoleon warned him.

‘I know that,’ Illya said impatiently, but really he knew Napoleon was right to say it. He _was_ thinking of it almost as a kind of holiday, a holiday from the dreariness of the life forced on him by this shifting opacity that veiled his eyes. ‘I _do_ know,’ he said. ‘But can’t I look forward to it, Napoleon?’

And Napoleon sighed and patted a hand over his. ‘Of course you can,’ he said, ‘and I can too. As long as you remember – ’

‘I always remember,’ Illya said. How could he not be aware of the dangers, of Napoleon being killed out there while he was doing his work, or of him coming back broken, grievously injured, or permanently maimed as Illya had been when that man had thrown acid at his eyes? It had left very few and faint scars on the skin around, but the eyes were delicate organs, and now everything he saw was milky white. Now every time Napoleon left on a mission some part of Illya waited for the call to tell him he would never be coming home.

He managed while Napoleon was away, cooking his own meals, walking for groceries to the store on the corner, where Mrs Lui would take him around the store chattering and putting what he wanted in his basket for him, then taking the correct money from the sheaf of bills that all felt the same. He got cabs to and from work, or sometimes he walked. Sometimes he even visited the jazz club over on the west side where he played piano or his English horn and drunk a little more than he would ever admit to Napoleon, who worried so much about him each time he was away. He could manage without Napoleon, but he didn’t want Napoleon as a helper, as a guide, as a useful pair of eyes. He wanted him because he was the other part of his soul, and without the intensity of active field work to distract him he didn’t think he could live without him.

‘There’s a cab,’ Napoleon said suddenly, and Illya turned his ear towards the street. ‘Yeah, he’s stopping. Come on.’ And he opened the door for Illya and warned him as always to watch his head, and Illya slid across the seat and gave the address as he felt Napoleon settle beside him.

  


((O))

  


In the apartment Illya kissed Napoleon as if he had just stepped in off the flight, his arms around him, under the chill cover of his overcoat and jacket, feeling that wonderful solidity of him. He felt his beating heart under his fingertips through the muscle of his back, and he was so glad that Napoleon had come back to him again, beautifully alive and whole. Then he dropped his hands and said, ‘Sit. You must be exhausted,’ and he went into the kitchen to make coffee.

He pressed his hands over the warm glass of the percolator pot as the liquid trickled in, then fetched a couple of mugs down from the cupboard and looked in the fridge for the cream, which was always in the square sided jug. They had developed so many tricks like that. Cream in the square jug, milk in the curved one. The meals that Napoleon insisted on putting in the freezer for him even though Illya had learnt to cook beautifully at the rehabilitation centre had little cut out shapes taped on the lids: a square for traditional American meals, circle for Oriental, triangle for pasta meals, a crescent moon for the occasional dessert. It was crude and wasn’t infallible, but it was one of the many little ways of coping.

He poured the coffee and picked up the two mugs and brought them through. Napoleon grunted a grateful response as he set them on the low table.

‘Sorry, Illya,’ he said. ‘I think I dropped off a little. It’s been a long, weird day.’

‘It’s okay,’ Illya said easily. He knew well what it was like. ‘It must feel like almost eleven at night to you.’

‘Yeah, and I don’t think Waverly believes that jet lag is a thing.’

Illya laughed, and moved a little closer so he was against Napoleon’s side. It was so good to feel him at last. He lightly traced his fingers over Napoleon’s cotton shirt, feeling the warmth of his chest underneath. He loved to feel Napoleon, hard and warm under his hands, and Napoleon was such a sensualist that when Illya stroked his hands all over him he just lay back and practically purred.

‘Well, you can be lazy tonight,’ Illya said. ‘I’ll make us some dinner and we can eat in front of the TV, and then we can spend all evening in bed.’

‘Hmm.’ Napoleon laid his broad hand on Illya’s thigh and stroked upwards, until he was just touching the firm bundle between his legs through the cloth of his trousers. ‘Suddenly I feel wide awake.’

‘Trust you,’ Illya snorted.

They made love later with the urgency of a long time apart, in front of the open log fire, Napoleon on his knees with his head on the thick rug and Illya coming from behind him, pushing into him almost desperately. He came quickly, because it had been too long, and he knelt there afterwards, not even winded, and stroked his fingers over the beads of Napoleon’s spine and kissed his firm behind and laid his cheek on his broad back while the heat of the fire pressed into them both. Later they took their lovemaking to the bed, where Napoleon treated Illya to all the slow tenderness that had been missing from that first urgent fuck. And then they fell asleep in a sweaty tangle without even showering, and Illya woke at some point in the early hours to find that Napoleon was stirring too, and he spooned against him and kissed his shoulders and his neck and his long spine and asked Napoleon sleepily for the oil, and he made love to him long and slow and with sleepy sweetness, and fell back asleep with his hips still pressed against Napoleon’s perfect, firm ass.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning Illya stretched and blinked open his eyes and saw the pearly white light of day in the room. He was warm and naked under the covers, and he stretched an arm out, and realised that he was also alone. Then Napoleon came in, bringing with him the scent of coffee and toast, saying, ‘You may have done your best to tire me out but I still woke at five,  _tovarisch_ . Toast?’

‘And coffee,’ Illya smiled sleepily, stretching again. ‘You are too good to me, Napoleon.’

‘I only give as good as I get, _mon cher_.’

‘And then a shower, maybe,’ Illya said with a smile. He felt sticky in all sorts of places, and his thighs were still smooth with the oil that Napoleon had used.

‘Oh, yes, a shower. Together. Definitely a shower.’

‘You are incorrigible,’ Illya said. ‘How much sex do you need?’

‘When I’ve been away from you and then I’m back with you, Illya, I could fuck like a bunny until kingdom come.’

Napoleon slipped back into bed beside him and leant across to kiss Illya’s cheek, and then he passed him his coffee and his plate of toast and grumbled, ‘There’ll be crumbs in the bed.’

‘There’s more than that in the bed,’ Illya grinned. He loved the scent of their bed after lovemaking, that lingering scent of sweat and oil and come. ‘I’ll change it after work,’ he promised. ‘The navy sheets are on top of the pile, aren’t they?’ He ran his fingers over the sheet on the bed. ‘And these ones are white?’

‘Uh, yeah, I think the navy ones are on top, and these ones are white.’

Sometimes, in very bright light and at the right angle, he could make out a hint of colour, but, mostly he relied on Napoleon ordering things and telling him how they were ordered. All of his clothes were arranged very carefully, although it helped that most of them were black. His maroon sports jacket was always on the far right of the wardrobe, his grey poloneck was at the bottom of the neatly folded pile of black ones. If in doubt, he stuck to the left of the wardrobe, of the rack of ties, to the top of the piles of t-shirts and polonecks, and he knew he was wearing black.

He sank his teeth into a slice of toast, rich with butter, and his stomach grumbled at that promise of imminent food. He sipped his coffee, and it was hot and rich in his throat. There was nothing better than this, than an early morning in bed with Napoleon after he had just come home.

They showered, and made love under the scattering water, and then shaved and dressed. Illya enjoyed the car ride to headquarters, with the top down despite the cold because he loved the feeling of the wind on his face. Napoleon parked the car, shivering, and said, ‘We’re right outside the entrance,  _tovarisch_ . I’ll take the car to the garage today, but there’s no need for both of us to be late.’

So Illya got his cane and stepped out onto the kerb, and waited just a beat until Napoleon said, ‘A smidge to the left, honey.’ Napoleon always guided him in like that, even if he didn’t need it. Sometimes the cab drivers took him down to the door, but he really didn’t need them to. He just found it made life easier to acquiesce to kindness, because sometimes he really did need it.

He tapped across the sidewalk and found the steps, and then Napoleon drove off. Del Floria greeted him and touched his arm to steer him into the changing booth, and that was another unnecessary bit of help. Illya smiled and thanked him as always, but he reached up for the coat hook before Del Floria could because he wasn’t giving up  _that_ little pleasure to misguided assistance. He liked to let himself in. There had been an awful time when he had thought he would never be working here again.

‘Good morning, Mr Kuryakin,’ the receptionist of the day told him, and he accepted his badge and slipped it onto his jacket as someone hurried into the room. He smelt Sarah’s perfume before she spoke, and he nodded, ‘Morning, Sarah. I trust you have an exciting day lined up for me?’

He took her arm, because it was easier than navigating the busy early morning corridors without help. Yawning and sleepy employees were often careless employees.

‘Just the usual, Illya,’ she told him, a smile in her voice. ‘Barkley needs an updated dossier compiled on Victor Marton’s recent activity. Oh, but Mr Waverly has asked to see you and Mr Solo after lunch. He didn’t say what it was about.’

Illya’s heart jolted. Perhaps it would really happen. Perhaps it was true. His step didn’t falter, but he was so distracted by the thought that he missed Sarah’s warning about the door and stumbled into the frame.

‘In another world this morning?’ Sarah asked him teasingly. ‘Well, I suppose Mr Solo is home, isn’t he? You must have been busy last night.’

Illya grunted, not deigning to give a proper reply. Sarah knew all about him and Napoleon. It was impossible to hide anything from Sarah. She was discreet, though.

‘The first set of information is in in-tray one,’ she told him as he made for his desk. ‘I need to go down to documents to get the rest printed for you. I’ve put the brailler on the desk because you’ll want to do some rough work first, I’m sure. If you do the roughs I can type it all up during your meeting with the old man this afternoon.’

One blessing of Sarah was that she read Braille as easily with her eyes – more easily, perhaps – than Illya did with his fingers. It saved so much time and trouble.

He sat down behind his desk and pulled out the first thick pile of paper. Victor Marton’s name was on the front. His memory tried to drift back to that affair when he had been loaded with truth serum, that funeral parlour and the eventual exploding handkerchief that ended Lucia Belmont, but he sternly told himself to focus, and started to read.

Napoleon distracted him a while later with a kiss on the top of his head, saying, ‘You’re in another world this morning.’

‘Have you been talking to Sarah?’ Illya asked lightly. ‘I’m not in another world. I’m just concentrating. You know, that thing you do when you have work to complete.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Napoleon grunted. ‘I feel half asleep and I’ve got to draw together everything about the Bonn mission before I can write out the final report.’

‘Check your in-tray,’ Illya said rather smugly, and Napoleon did.

‘Oh, god, Illya, you’re incredible,’ he said as he found the information that Illya had compiled yesterday. ‘You’re amazing.’

‘I do my job,’ Illya shrugged. ‘The preliminary info came over the airwaves not on a Boeing. It got here before you even boarded in Bonn.’

‘You can try to shuck off the glory, but you’re still incredible,’ Napoleon told him warmly. ‘How long have you been at it? Need some coffee?’

Illya blinked. He thought he had just sat down, but when he thought about it he had gone through the whole of the first pile of documents and written ten Braille sheets of notes. He opened the front of his watch and felt the hands. It was half past ten already.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were just parking the car?’

‘Oh, yeah, I bumped in to Sandra Wilcox just past reception and she had a bunch of info about the Cairo affair for me, so I went with her to check it over,’ Napoleon said rather guiltily. ‘I knew you’d be buried in your work.’ He reached around Illya and Illya heard him running his fingers over the paper on the desk. ‘I don’t know how you read this. I told you you’re incredible.’

‘Practice,’ Illya said rather grimly. ‘Hours and hours of practice, Napoleon. You know that. You could read it too if you practised the amount I have.’

Illya got up and reached out towards Napoleon, touching his shoulder and then leaning in to kiss him, trusting that Napoleon would tell him if anyone were watching. There was no scent of perfume on his clothes. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t trust Napoleon, but he knew that a lot of the women in U.N.C.L.E. didn’t exactly understand that he was off limits at last, especially as he couldn’t be open about his relationship. He suspected that a lot of the personnel here knew, and said nothing, but Sandra Wilcox was astonishingly obtuse for an U.N.C.L.E. employee, and ever hopeful.

‘Coffee?’ Napoleon asked, and before Illya could start looking he said, ‘Here’s your cane.’

So Illya took it but he didn’t use it. He just lightly held Napoleon’s arm and followed him down the familiar route to the commissary.

‘Is our table free?’ he asked, and Napoleon said, ‘It’s free,’ so Illya tapped his way over to the corner table and took a seat.

‘Kuryakin, I hear you’re hoping for some action, huh?’

Illya rested his cane in the corner and pushed his dark glasses more firmly onto his nose, and sighed. He hadn’t liked Paul Doyle before he lost his sight and he still didn’t like him. It wasn’t that he was unfriendly, exactly, but he was abrasive and confrontational. He didn’t like how gossip spread in U.N.C.L.E. like wildfire, either. For a security organisation too many people had very loose lips. How could something that was between only him, Napoleon, and Waverly spread so quickly?

‘What action can there possibly be for me, Paul?’ he asked acidly. ‘I come in, I work in the office, I go home.’

He reached out, found the salt and pepper pots, lined them up more neatly at the edge of the table. Then Napoleon said, ‘Morning, Paul. Illya, here’s your coffee.’

And Illya heard the ceramic clatter just in front of him, and reached out to the warmth of the cup.

‘Well, I’d better get on,’ Paul said. ‘Flying out to Cancun in a few hours. We’ve got some nasty little types involved in some diabolical plan – ’

‘Laundering money through a casino and funding Thrush’s latest weapons project,’ Illya said laconically to Napoleon as his partner sat down. He had dealt with the intelligence report and chosen Doyle for the mission. It seemed just about within his abilities.

He smiled covertly as Doyle wandered away, and picked up his coffee.

‘There’s a slice of cake, too,’ Napoleon said. ‘Chocolate. It looked like the kind of thing you’d covet.’

‘You will make me fat,’ Illya complained. ‘I don’t run around like I used to.’

‘Nonsense. You work out every other day and we go running on Sundays.’

‘When you’re here.’

‘When I’m here,’ Napoleon conceded.

‘Where’s my cake?’ Illya asked.

Napoleon closed his hand warmly around Illya’s and guided it to the plate. ‘There’s a spoon on the right hand side of the plate.’

Napoleon was right. It was the kind of cake he coveted. The scent hit his nostrils even before he took a bite, and his mouth gushed saliva.

‘I hope you’ve got some for yourself,’ he commented around a dark mouthful.

‘I got myself some cinnamon rolls,’ Napoleon said, brushing the side of Illya’s mouth with a napkin. ‘I should have gotten cake. I don’t know why I didn’t. Half asleep, I guess.’

Illya cut his cake in half with his spoon. ‘Share mine. I’ll take a cinnamon roll.’

Napoleon laughed. ‘Illya Kuryakin, giving up cake. Now I know you love me,’ he said.

  


((O))

  


After a few more hours of work and a pleasant lunch Illya picked up his cane and brushed his fingers down the front of his jacket and felt the knot of his tie. Then he asked Napoleon, ‘I look like an agent?’

‘You always look like an agent. You never stopped.’

‘No holster,’ Illya said rather ruefully, patting his side where his gun used to sit.

‘Perhaps for the best,’ Napoleon said honestly.

‘I thought if I improved my accuracy with audible targets I might be able to carry for self defence,’ Illya said in a hopeful tone. ‘Just sleep darts, of course, not bullets.’

‘Hmm,’ Napoleon said. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ Illya echoed, although he was as doubtful as Napoleon sounded. But he felt naked without his gun, and worse than that, he felt terrifically vulnerable. ‘Anyway, I’ve regained my firearms maintenance certificate. I can strip down anything in the armoury and clean it and oil it and put it back together.’

‘You’re a dark horse, Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘When have you been doing all this?’

Illya shrugged. ‘I have to occupy myself somehow when you’re out of town, don’t I?’ He felt at his watch. ‘Better go. We mustn’t keep the old man waiting.’

He took Napoleon’s arm all the way up to Waverly’s office, but he let go just outside and dropped the tip of the cane to the ground and just walked beside Napoleon, turning his ear a little to orient himself. He wanted to look as capable as possible. The air was thick with pipe smoke and Waverly said, ‘Gentlemen, take a seat,’ as they entered, and Illya made for the chair that should be directly in front of him. The cane lightly touched the legs and he reached out for the back then slipped his hand down to the seat and sat down. Napoleon took a seat beside him.

‘Well, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly said, and Illya felt a small shiver of discomfort between his shoulder blades. ‘Mr Solo here tells me you want to join in on the Cairo affair.’

Illya ducked his head a little. He didn’t have to be able to see to know that Mr Waverly’s eyes were boring into him. Then he raised his head and tried to project self-confidence, and said, ‘Yes, sir. Mr Solo will need someone to monitor the bugs in the hotel room. I can monitor and transcribe and transmit the intelligence to Napoleon in the field.’

He heard Waverly take a long breath. ‘Mr Kuryakin, you are quite blind still, are you not?’

Illya fought against the ridiculous impulse to laugh. It must be nerves. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘but this isn’t a task that requires sight. Mr Solo tells me the hotel is extremely secure, and I’m quite able to monitor and record and take notes. I’m better at audio surveillance than I ever was. I’ve spent a lot of time transcribing tapes and I can pick up details that other people haven’t noticed.’

‘You haven’t been in the field for almost twenty-three months,’ Waverly said.

‘No, I know, sir,’ Illya said quietly.

He hadn’t been in the field since that terrible mission that had been aborted, for him at least, so early on, when he had found himself kneeling on the floor of a lab in Stockholm clutching his hands to his face and screaming with pain. That had been a terrible time, scrabbling himself into a corner and huddling there while Napoleon went on with the mission, because Napoleon  _had_ to go on with the mission. Then the panicked rush to the hospital afterwards, a hospital full of people speaking a language that he knew but wasn’t fluent in, wasn’t in the right mind for fighting to understand.

And Napoleon hadn’t been there. Napoleon had delivered him through the doors but he had to go and sort out the tail end of the mission, and Illya had lain there in a white panic all alone with doctors around him speaking to him in Swedish and then trying English. They were bending over him, forcing his eyes open, pouring what felt like pints of water over his eyes for so long, talking to him and talking to him, and through the pain and the medication and the panic he just couldn’t understand.

And then, thank god, when they heard his name they found a wonderful lady doctor from Lviv who could speak to him in either Russian or Ukrainian. She had held his hand and explained to him gently but with absolute honesty what was happening and that his eyes were very badly damaged and that it was doubtful he would see again. And he had cried, because he was alone and his entire life had come crashing down around him, and because he overheard and understood enough of what the other doctors were saying to know that if he had been able to wash the stuff out of his eyes straight away that he would have been fine. Oh, how he had cried, and that Ukrainian doctor, that wonderful woman who he had never met before, held him like a child in her arms and stroked his hair and sang the gentle Ukrainian songs of his childhood to him and stayed with him for hours, until Napoleon finally came.

When Napoleon came he had tried so hard to keep himself composed, with the bandages around his face and the awful, sickening stinging on his skin and eyes, and the knowledge that everything, everything was over. And that wonderful doctor had explained to Napoleon about everything, and then kissed Illya on the forehead, and then she had left them alone. And he hadn’t been able to hold it, he had cried again, and Napoleon, his wonderful, beautiful, completely platonic friend, had held him and stroked him and rocked him and told him it would be all right, he promised it would be all right. But Napoleon hadn’t been able to fix his eyes and he hadn’t been able to stop the pain.

And then when he had got back to New York after that terrible, terrifying flight in darkness with bandages around his eyes and so lost in the knowledge that he would never see again, Napoleon had moved Illya into his own apartment, everything he owned, everything that was precious to him, and he had never left. It hadn’t taken long for them to close that final gap, when one day Napoleon was tracing the tears from Illya’s healing cheeks with his fingertips and he had kissed the trails they left, and then kissed Illya’s lips, and it had felt as if some kind of small sun were rising in this darkness.

‘This wouldn’t exactly be in the field, sir,’ Napoleon said from beside him, and Illya jumped a little. He had almost forgotten where he was in that long drift of memory. ‘As I’ve told you, the hotel is very secure and the room can be on one of the highest floors. It’s just surveillance.’

‘Hmm,’ Mr Waverly said. ‘Knowing you and Mr Kuryakin, I know that simple surveillance is apt to turn to fist fights and shoot outs with alarming alacrity.’

‘No. Not this mission, sir,’ Napoleon said firmly. ‘At least, not for Illya. He doesn’t even have to leave the room.’

‘If that’s the case, Mr Kuryakin, why do you want to go?’ Waverly asked perspicaciously.

Illya rolled his cane between his hands. ‘Sir, I haven’t been out of the New York office in almost two years,’ he said. ‘I just wanted – ’ He broke off. How could he explain? How could he expect Waverly to understand?

But he heard Waverly push his chair back and stand and walk in a curving path around the edge of the table, and then his hand was on Illya’s shoulder, squeezing it firmly, and he said, ‘I know how it feels to long for the field, son, and when I retired from all that I was a good age, not a vital young man in his thirties. I understand, Mr Kuryakin. Go on this surveillance mission. I trust Mr Solo to take care of you, a good deal better than you’d take care of yourself, I dare say. But I want a full report on your understanding of the possible risks and dangers on my desk by the end of the day.’

Illya breathed out hard, feeling a bright glow of joy in his chest.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

Waverly’s hand squeezed on his shoulder again.

‘You were a superlative agent, Mr Kuryakin. It was a great loss when you were taken out of commission. Perhaps if this goes well you might be considered for similar jaunts in the future, hmm?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Illya said. It was no good. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face any more. ‘Thank you.’

‘Well, get on with you both,’ Waverly said with gruff impatience. ‘We’ve all got work to do, one way or another.’

‘Oh, Napoleon,’ Illya said as soon as they were through the doors.

‘Oh, just kiss him, for god’s sake,’ Waverly’s secretary, Laura Wentworth, said suddenly. ‘You know you’re a couple and I know you’re a couple and Mr Waverly knows you’re a couple, so just kiss him.’

And before Illya could do anything Napoleon had him in his arms and was kissing him hard and spinning him around and around, but then Napoleon suddenly came to a stop and asked in perturbation, ‘ _Mr Waverly_ knows?’

Illya lurched at the sudden halt and reached out blindly, and Napoleon steadied him.

‘Sit down, Illya, dear,’ Miss Wentworth said kindly, handing him to a chair, and Illya sat gratefully. It was hard to catch your balance without anything to fix your eyes on. ‘Yes, Napoleon, of course he knows. He’s not as blind as all that. Er – I beg your pardon, Illya.’

Illya held up a hand. He could hardly stop smiling. ‘No offence taken.’

‘Well,’ Napoleon said. He was silent for a few long moments, then he said, ‘Well, Laura, Illya and I will be leaving for Cairo in – uh – three days.’

‘I’ll be sure to sort out the air tickets and the car hire,’ she said smoothly. ‘Illya, will you be bringing Sarah along?’

‘Oh,’ Illya said.

He hadn’t thought of that. He thought of Sarah’s wonderful efficiency and how she made sure he had everything he needed at his fingertips, and how she never patronised him or did too much for him, but just enough. Then he imagined that hotel room thousands of miles away and the North African heat and Napoleon in his bed, and he shook his head.

‘No, she’s not an agent,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right. I’m sure she’ll sort out anything I’ll need while I’m away.’ He stood up and held out a hand and said, ‘Napoleon? We’d better get down to the office and start working.’


	3. Chapter 3

It did feel strange to be at JFK again, not waiting to meet Napoleon or seeing him off, but standing with his passport in hand in the queue for boarding, and knowing that he was about to exchange frigid New York where snow was falling for the heat of Cairo. He handed his passport to the official and took off his glasses when asked, then slipped them back on again and followed Napoleon’s arm through the doors, where the cold air and a flurry of snow hit his face. He tilted his head upwards, feeling those flakes melting on his skin, imagining the sky heavy with grey cloud. Not far away jet engines roared and the air was thick with the scent of fuel and busy with the voices of the other passengers.

Napoleon took him across the tarmac and then said, ‘Here’s the steps, Illya,’ and he reached out a hand to find the rail and used his cane to gauge the height and depth of the treads.

‘21A and 21B,’ Napoleon said smoothly to a strong scent of perfume and make-up at the top of the steps, then he added, ‘Mr Kuryakin is totally blind. Will you make sure the other attendants are aware of that in case of emergency?’

‘Oh, of course, sir,’ the stewardess said, then she raised her voice and said, ‘Mr Kuryakin, please let any of us know if you need anything. We’ll be pleased to help.’

‘Yes, I will,’ Illya said rather awkwardly.

‘You can leave the cane with me, and I’ll be sure to get it back to you when we land,’ she continued.

‘Er – ’ Napoleon began, and at the same time Illya gripped a little harder at the cane.

‘No, thank you,’ Illya said very firmly. ‘I’ll keep it with me.’

‘Oh, well, it really would be better to leave it with us,’ she urged him. ‘It’ll be quite safe. It’s just it might get in the way of another passenger – ’

‘ _No_ , thank you,’ Illya said again. For over a year and a half, since he had first been taught how to use the cane and had learnt suddenly that he need not be trapped by his blindness, he had grown to see it as almost another part of himself. He had grown so proficient with it that he could navigate with relative ease for blocks and blocks around his home, and it was a life-line in unfamiliar areas. He had no intention of letting it go now. ‘It will not get in the way of another passenger because I will keep it with me.’

Something in his voice must have convinced her that she would not win this argument, and Illya was glad, because he knew that if she raised a fuss they could compel him to leave the cane with her. He felt deep relief when Napoleon moved on. He heard the woman say behind him, ‘Oh, I know, isn’t he a doll? Such a shame...’

He leant in towards Napoleon and said, ‘It’s amazing how many people think the blind are also deaf. ’

Napoleon chuckled quietly. ‘Squeeze in a little here past the bathroom,’ he said, angling Illya in behind him, and he followed Napoleon down the aisle and then into his seat. He raised his hand to trace his fingertips over the cold glass of the window, then asked, ‘Wouldn’t you rather have the window seat?’

Napoleon put his hand softly on Illya’s thigh and he could hear his smile when he spoke.

‘Not at all. Now every time I go to look out of the window I see you too.’

Illya smiled and leant his head back against the seat, then he fumbled at the seatbelt and Napoleon’s hands came over his and helped him to fix it.

‘It’s been too long since I flew,’ Illya commented.

‘And too short since I did,’ Napoleon countered lightly.

‘If only we could find a middle ground,’ Illya said jokingly. He sat there for a moment feeling the hum of the engines coming up through the floor and through the seat and hissing in the air around him, then said, ‘It really has been too long. It’s hard to believe that Waverly let me go.’

‘Waverly’s a human being,’ Napoleon shrugged beside him. ‘He knows how you feel. He said so himself.’

‘Well, I suppose he did,’ Illya mused.

He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the final few passengers straggling by and then heard one of the stewardesses going through the safety checks and warning people to fasten their seat belts and not to smoke until the no smoking lights went off. Then the turbines roared into real life, and the plane started to rumble as it moved across the tarmac, and Napoleon said, ‘We’re just hitting the runway now,’ just as a sudden acceleration jerked him back into his seat and then he felt the beautiful rush and lurch of the aircraft leaving the ground.

After a while the air started to grow stale with cigarette smoke and there was a scent of spirits and Napoleon asked him if he wanted a drink, and he grunted a refusal. He realised he was still wearing his seat belt, and he fiddled with the buckle and got it open, and stretched his legs out a little. He touched the back of the seat in front, feeling the fold-down table and the little pouch below that held a magazine and what was probably a sick bag.

‘Who’s around us?’ he asked, because every time he flew, even on that last flight when he had been so distracted by pain and grief, he needed to know the likely threats.

‘No one,’ Napoleon said, and Illya knew what he meant. No threats. ‘A family and their kids off to the left of us. A balding guy in a trenchcoat and a businessman, I think, in front of us. I think the guy behind is a salesman, and the seat next to him is empty. I did the scan and Laura checked the passenger list this morning. We should be fine.’

Illya grunted and shut his eyes again, then took off the sunglasses he wore and pushed them into the inside pocket of his jacket. It wasn’t too bright in here, and they would be uncomfortable if he fell asleep. He felt by habit to his right for his cane, and it was just where he had left it, leaning against the seat to the right of his knee, sticking up in front of the window.

He imagined thick banks of cloud outside the window, and remembered that last flight as the plane droned on, steadily climbing. He remembered sitting on the plane back from Stockholm after a few days in hospital there, sitting in a seat just like this one, with a bottle of pills in his breast pocket to counter the pain that still burned in his eyes, thick bandages around his head, and Napoleon next to him, almost vibrating with his concern for his injured partner. He had tried to sleep and found himself unable to sleep, and he had tried talking to Napoleon, tried acting as if this were just a normal flight, but he couldn’t. It just didn’t work. He had tried to say something about the weather and Napoleon had told him it was brilliant sunshine outside, and he had tried to reply, but his voice broke and he had to bite his lip into his mouth and was grateful that the bandages covered his eyes and that tears were not remarkable at the moment because his eyes watered so much from the pain.

Napoleon had just been a ball of guilt in those early days. Illya had transferred to U.N.C.L.E. medical and they had looked at his eyes and reiterated what had been said in Stockholm; that if the eyes had been irrigated early enough then he would have been all right. The delay had blinded him. And he thought of how he had crouched there in the corner in that lab, sheltering under a table, while bullets flew through the air and his eyes hurt so much that a bullet would have been a relief, and he had shouted to Napoleon, ‘Leave me. Go on.’

And Napoleon had, and he blamed himself, would continue to blame himself, blamed himself still. His guilt was easier now, but it was still there. In the darkest times it came out and it was Illya’s turn to comfort Napoleon, because really there had been nothing he could do. They were agents, and their first duty was to the mission. Because Napoleon had left him he had secured the entire building and most of its complement of Thrushies, and an entire cell had been brought down. Agents often had to pay the price for these victories, and this time the price had been Illya’s eyes. But Napoleon blamed himself for leaving him, blamed himself for not being with him in those first hours at the hospital, blamed himself for having to leave him again in the infirmary to type up reports and debrief with Waverly and do all those necessary things.

But, oh, they had been hard days. Illya hadn’t known what to do, where to turn. Napoleon had brought him home to his apartment and Illya had stood in the middle of the chaos of Napoleon’s attempt to blend their combined possessions, and he had fallen to his knees and sobbed right there on the carpet, boxes around him and the door still open and a bewildered man from the moving company asking tentatively what he could do to help. Napoleon had just ushered the man outside and shut and locked the door, and knelt facing Illya and held him until the tears turned to exhaustion, and then Napoleon led him through the chaos into the room that had been his study and helped Illya down into the familiar smell of his own bed, and he had sat with him until he fell asleep.

When Illya had woken some hours later he heard voices in the apartment, the moving men back again, and Napoleon directing them, and he had huddled under the blanket with his arms around his head and waited until all was quiet. Then Napoleon had come in and led him out and so gently and carefully guided him around the entire place, telling him where everything was, the books he couldn’t read, the records he couldn’t tell one from the other, the clothes that all felt the same, the kitchen equipment he couldn’t use and the television he couldn’t watch and the open fire that he couldn’t light but must always be careful of when Napoleon had it lit. And he had thought that his life was over. He had thought of walking out onto Napoleon’s balcony with its glorious view of the East River and just tipping himself over the edge. Those days had been black and awful and filled with anger and fear and frustration and grief, and Napoleon had gently and patiently coaxed him through, until he was ready to face the fact that this would be his future, ready to enrol in the rehabilitation school for the blind across town and to consider that perhaps he could actually still make something of his life, once he had learnt to adapt.

And now he had adapted. Now here he was sitting on a plane again, flying back towards the European continent on a Boeing headed for Paris, where they would make their connection to Cairo. It all felt so odd. Twenty-three months felt so long, but so short as well. He was so changed. He had never imagined in the early days that he could be sitting here with a cane at his side, able to read and write Braille, to cook his own meals, to walk around his neighbourhood alone and buy his own groceries and go into work every day at the U.N.C.L.E. as if this were normality, almost as if he had always been blind. Almost…

He missed it all so much. He felt a ridiculously strong grief rising in him, and he turned his face to the window. They must have climbed above the winter clouds now and the brightness out there was almost painful. He closed his eyes and clenched his hands, and then Napoleon said, ‘Hey, Illya. Are you okay?’

He very deliberately relaxed his hands again, and smiled.

‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘Just – thinking.’

Napoleon’s hand came to rest over his, curling around it, and one finger gently stroked his palm, underneath where no one could see.

‘I know it’s still hard,’ Napoleon said. ‘I know.’

Illya smiled tightly. ‘It’s hard,’ he acknowledged, ‘but look at me. I’m out of the office on a mission. That’s got to be good, hasn’t it?’

‘It has,’ Napoleon said. Then he said, ‘Illya, it’s pretty quiet now. Do you want me to show you the bathroom in case – ’

And Illya took that lifeline. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, please, Napoleon. Show me the bathroom.’

So he slid out of his seat after Napoleon and put a hand lightly on his arm from behind to follow him down the narrow aisle, and when they both rather awkwardly squeezed past the stewardess coming the other way Illya tilted his head down and smiled as Napoleon said, ‘I’m just showing Mr Kuryakin the facilities, if you don’t mind. While they’re clean, you know.’

‘Oh, they’re always clean,’ the stewardess began, but Illya knew that was not true, and although Napoleon had an ulterior motive he did far prefer to look around the bathroom before anyone else had used it, when a hand in the wrong place didn’t mean touching someone’s discarded tissue or a suspicious patch of wet.

Napoleon took him into the small bathroom and locked the door and said very quickly, ‘You know exactly what this one’s like, Illya. Boeing 707, standard design. They haven’t changed.’

‘Then the basin’s here,’ Illya said, reaching out a hand and touching the curved edge. ‘And the towel dispenser here, the toilet here,’ and he knocked it with his cane, ‘the flush here, the paper here, and the trash – Oh, I don’t remember where that is...’

‘Just here,’ Napoleon said, guiding his hand to the opening.

‘Thank you, Napoleon,’ Illya said, but Napoleon said, ‘Oh, Illya,’ and pressed his arms around him and held him so tightly he found it hard to breathe.

‘Now, don’t, don’t, Napoleon,’ Illya said gently. ‘Don’t. Don’t make me think about it.’

‘Don’t you always think about it?’ Napoleon asked, and Illya rested his head on his shoulder and said, ‘Yes, I do. I do. But I make myself move on. I have to.’

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said, and he stepped back a little in the small space and put a hand under Illya’s chin to lift it and then slipped that hand behind his head. Then he kissed him hot and hard and with so much passion that Illya’s heart began to race.

‘It will look just as bad if I come out of here hard as it will if I come out of here crying,’ Illya warned him, and Napoleon brushed his fingers swiftly and lightly over the bulge in his trousers and then brought his hands back to Illya’s face and brushed his fringe from his forehead and kissed it, and then his nose, and then his lips again.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said, giving him one last light kiss and then stepping back. ‘All right, Illya. I just needed to know that you were okay.’

‘I’m okay,’ Illya smiled, stroking his fingertips down Napoleon’s cheek, feeling the slight roughness of the beginnings of stubble and the bump of the mole on his jawline. He traced his fingers round and stroked across Napoleon’s beautiful lips, touched his nose, smoothed his eyebrows and then trailed his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m okay,’ he said again. ‘I am now. Let’s go back to our seats and have a drink.’

  


((O))

  


The plane landed in Paris and the air was colder than New York as they crossed the tarmac to the terminal building, because it was three a.m. local time, but there was no snow. The air was crisp in Illya’s lungs, a wonderful fresh relief after the stale smoke filled air of the aircraft cabin. He was tired and hungry and he stumbled after Napoleon with his eyes closed, not even trying to be graceful in his blindness. He just sat next to him in the cab and then followed him into the little hotel that Laura Wentworth had booked and sank into the cool, clean bed leaving his clothes dumped on the floor. And Napoleon kissed him and pottered around the room tidying up after him, then asked, ‘You sure you don’t want me to show you the bathroom? ’

Illya murmured, ‘No, too sleepy. Come to bed,’ and held out an arm, so Napoleon got in next to him, naked and feeling bone tired in the way his body just slumped down against Illya’s side. Illya cast an arm over Napoleon’s hip and snuggled his face into his neck, and then he was asleep.

In the morning, or some kind of morning because Illya’s body could hardly tell what time it was and it was light although his mind told him it should be dark, they both roused at the sound of Napoleon’s little folding travel alarm clock, and Illya sat blinking stupidly, ridiculously hard with morning glory, and said, ‘ _Now_ I want you to show me the bathroom, dear. Can you? ’

Napoleon chuckled and said, ‘It’s shared, down the hall. Are you sure you don’t want me to do something about your little problem first? ’

So Illya stretched and put his arms behind his head and let Napoleon take care of him with his hot mouth, and it felt so good. Napoleon was so talented at that particular art. And then they went to the bathroom and washed and shaved and Napoleon took Illya down into a clattering dining room where they tore into fresh croissants and brioche and drank coffee, and Napoleon checked over their travel documents and their Egyptian money. Illya tried to learn the feel of the coins and worried that Sarah had packed all his equipment correctly and that he had remembered his spare cane, the folding one, and his spare tips as well, and he touched his ankle against Napoleon’s under the table and felt so glad that he was there.

  


((O))

  


They were on a plane again by nine, this time heading south and east across a slice of Europe and then the Mediterranean, and Illya felt it strangely in his blood how close they were to the Ukraine, close compared to New York. He wondered what it would be like to turn up there now, unsighted. Would everything seem different, or would it be all the same? If he met his university friends or his navy colleagues what would they make of him? He wondered if there would be pity, or just open arms and slivovitz into the night, until they were all as blind with drink as he was blind to start with.

‘Where are you, Illya?’ Napoleon asked, tapping him on the thigh.

‘Huh?’

‘I’ve said your name three times. I started to wonder if you were asleep behind those glasses, but you were smiling.’

‘Oh.’ Illya shook his head and took the glasses off and turned to Napoleon. He couldn’t see him but he could feel how close he was, his head only a space away on the other seat. He could smell his aftershave and when Napoleon spoke he caught little puffs of warm breath. He recalled that sublime feeling earlier when Napoleon’s mouth had been so hot over him and he had come so beautifully into Napoleon’s throat. He still felt good from that.

‘Just reminiscing,’ he said with a small shrug. ‘Sorry. What were you saying?’

‘Nothing, really,’ Napoleon said, putting a hand on his thigh. ‘Just conversation. What were you reminiscing about?’

Illya smiled. ‘I was remembering Boris Andreikiv and the slivovitz he used to make that was so strong it would just as likely kill you as cure you,’ he said. ‘Have you ever had a night, Napoleon, when you’ve woken up with absolutely no memory of a thing that happened, but you knew that it was perfect? That you were so happy?’

Napoleon laughed. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but somehow I think your people do unrepressed joy rather better than mine. You let yourself feel everything right down to your toes instead of listening to that little puritanical granny on your shoulder telling you you’ll go to hell.’

‘Ah, perhaps that is it,’ Illya grinned.

He wished he could take Napoleon home and share all those things with him. It was almost impossible now. He found in general that blindness laid a little film down between himself and everyone else, and all their reactions were altered until they had grown to understand that really he was still just a man like the rest of them. He wondered how it would be if he took Napoleon home to meet his mother, who hadn’t seen him since he had become blind and cried when she spoke to him on the phone and tried to hide her crying from him.

‘What’s out there?’ he asked, nodding towards the window.

Napoleon leant closer to him and was quiet for a moment, then he said, ‘We’re passing along some coastline or other, along the Mediterranean, I guess. It’s clear, so the water’s pretty blue. Very small waves coming in to the shore. There’s a boat down there, a fishing boat, I think, and – oh, Illya, I think I can see the shoal under the water, like a shadow under there. Wow...’

And he trailed off and left Illya imagining what he could see with a degree of wistfulness and a degree of pleasure.

‘I’ll always tell you what I can see, if you want to know,’ Napoleon had said on that first morning in their now-shared apartment, over breakfast. ‘Whatever I’m doing, just ask me and I’ll tell you what I can see.’

And Illya had tried hard to hold in the need to weep, because that was all he seemed to be doing at the moment. Because what he really needed was to be able to see the plate in front of him with its load of bacon and eggs and toast, because he had tried to work it out with his fork and had ended up having to touch his fingers into the mess of food just to know where everything was. He lifted a forkful of egg to his mouth but his throat was so thick that he couldn’t swallow, and then he just swept the plate aside and heard it clatter and smash on the floor, and he was crying again, for god’s sake, and Napoleon was holding him again as he wept and raged and wailed out so much formless anger and despair, his words barely making any sense. There had been so much anger in those first weeks, and Napoleon had been so patient and so good. When that particular storm was over Napoleon had cooked him another plate of food and said, ‘Listen, Illya, let’s try something they suggested in the infirmary. Imagine your plate is a clock face. Now, your toast is at twelve, you have two eggs at four, and your bacon is at eight. ’

And Illya turned his head away for a moment, revolted at such childish strategies, but then he had turned back and picked up his cutlery, and found that it worked, it helped. It didn’t help him balance food on his fork or be better at cutting up what he couldn’t see, but it was a small thing that helped in a small way.

‘Perhaps it’s Greece,’ Illya said, thinking of the coastline that Napoleon could see, wondering if it were ragged and broken into islands, wondering if the water around them looked like sliced and polished agate with the changes in depth.

‘I think more likely Italy,’ Napoleon said. ‘I think we’re flying down the length, keeping to the coast mainly. We’ve not been in the air long enough for Greece.’

‘Ah,’ Illya said, and the image in his mind immediately shifted. ‘Italy. Yes, that makes sense.’

And then suddenly the reality of all of this buzzed through him, reaching down into his fingers and toes. He was really doing this. He was sitting on an aeroplane heading out to Cairo with Napoleon, with a suitcase full of equipment in the hold and the trust of Waverly that he could do this job. He wouldn’t be sitting in the office running his fingers over second hand reports and compiling them into something to be fossilised in the files. He would be  _there,_ listening, transcribing these things as they actually occurred, and if Napoleon were out there in some anonymous Egyptian building with his gun and his eyes on the target, Illya would be whispering the intel to him just as he needed it, just a few miles away. The thrill itched through him, and he grinned, and Napoleon’s hand squeezed on his, and instead of thinking about what he couldn’t see he thought about the fact that he was flying, sailing thousands of feet above the ground in thin air with the heat of the sun pressing into his cheek through the window, with Napoleon at his side and the prospect of real agent’s work in the very near future.

  


((O))

  


‘What do you see?’ Illya asked as the car rolled along the Cairo streets.

He could feel the trundle of the wheels over a rather uneven surface and smell dust in the air, and on occasion the sound of oncoming cars or sudden overtakers was rather alarming. But it was a good car, an E-type with the top down, leather seats underneath him and an engine sound that made him itch to take the wheel. He had tried that once, in Napoleon’s car in an utterly deserted parking lot, and it had been a weird, incredible thrill to power up to speed and hear Napoleon shouting in terror beside him, calling him a mad, crazy, insane Russian and turning the wheel for him as they reached the limits of their space.

‘Not much,’ Napoleon said rather distractedly as he took a turning. ‘Damn, no, that’s the wrong way. I should have taken the third right.’

And he stopped and Illya touched a hand to the dashboard as Napoleon swung the car around in a three point turn.

‘There must be _something_ to see,’ Illya objected. ‘You can see a lot more than I can.’

‘What do you want me to tell you about, Illya?’ Napoleon asked, suddenly sounding repentant. ‘There really _isn’t_ much to see, and if you could see you’d be looking at a map, because I think I’m lost.’

Illya ignored that minor problem. ‘I want you to tell me how you can see the sun setting behind the pyramids or behind the Sphinx,’ he said with half a smile, ‘or how there’s a row of camels just setting out across the desert, silhouetted on the dunes.’

Napoleon laughed. ‘Well, I can’t see the pyramids or the Sphinx from here, and I see no camels, and the desert is flat, but we left it behind a few minutes ago. The sun’s not setting, either. But I can tell you about an ugly rash of apartment buildings that have sprung up since you were last here, and how there’s a woman walking down the other side of the street with such an enormous bundle of dates on her head that I can’t see her from the shoulders up, and how the sun catches beautifully on the tin roofs of the slums.’

Illya laughed. ‘Well, you can’t have it all,’ he said.

He could, at least, smell the rich exotic scents in the warm air, the smells of dung and cooking and dust and exhaust fumes. He could hear the deep tapestry of sounds from the city, car engines and horns and a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, a donkey braying and a woman shouting and children playing. He could smell tobacco smoke in the air mingling with the exhaust, and as they rolled slowly past the clatter of a café he caught a sudden strong scent of mint tea. He imagined men sitting outside with faces like sheets of old bark and hookah pipes in their hands, and he didn’t ask Napoleon if the men were really there, because he didn’t need his image to be dispelled.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a different kind of Cairo surrounding them as Illya stepped out of the car and tapped his cane onto the concrete of the ground. The intimate scents and sounds were gone. There were just cars and car horns and sometimes voices that came and went with the footsteps that passed. The muezzins had fallen silent now, and Illya stood with his head cocked, listening, wondering if that were sand he could hear being scudded by the soft breeze. Perhaps that was a fantasy, because the cars made an ever-present noise, but it could be that it were true. Two years ago he wouldn’t have imagined that a place could  _ feel  _ so different. He would have thought that the blind would get nothing from travel. Now he knew that to be wrong. Everything felt different, and it was so good to be here.

‘My arm?’ Napoleon offered gallantly, coming around to him. And then there were the voices of boys saying, ‘I carry, please? I carry bags?’

Illya slipped his hand into his pocket and felt for the jumble of cash he had in there. None of the coins were worth very much, so he held out a selection in his hand at shoulder level and said, ‘A boy who is tall enough to reach this is big enough to carry my bags. They’re heavy.’

Hands jumbled at his, snatching at the coins, and there was laughter and he grinned, but he was glad when Napoleon stepped in to select a couple of boys to take the luggage.

Then a hand slipped into his and tugged it, and a boy said, ‘Gentleman is blind? I lead. I lead.’

Illya sighed, because he trusted Napoleon’s guidance and he trusted his cane, but he didn’t really trust an eight year old little Egyptian boy who wanted to take his money. But then he smiled and said, ‘You lead me carefully, then. Do you promise to lead me carefully?’

‘Careful, careful,’ the boy said enthusiastically. ‘I am Ahmed. I lead you careful.’

Illya smiled. ‘It’s good to meet you, Ahmed. My name is Illya.’

And he listened to the boy tasting out the name, and then followed the small hand that was almost lost in his, but he used his cane too, and called back rather anxiously, ‘Napoleon?’

‘You’re doing fine, IK,’ Napoleon said in an amused voice. ‘I’ll be there in just a moment. I’m just sorting out this troop of monkeys with the luggage.’

‘Ah, good,’ Illya said rather dubiously, and the little boy jerked him forward and he followed and was amazed when the boy said solicitously, ‘There are steps now. Nine steps,’ before his cane had touched them. ‘Take care,’ the boy repeated at every step. ‘Take care. Now a door. I open.’

And Illya reached out his hand and felt the glass and metal of a rather modern door that was swinging open at the boy’s touch. He tapped his cane to the ground again and the floor sounded and felt like some kind of polished stone, cool and hard. It was a wide place, full of echoes and a soundscape of people’s voices, footsteps moving, softening a little behind the shadows of objects in the way then coming more clearly as they moved past them. There was the ding of an elevator and the sliding of its doors some way away. He visualised a large lobby perhaps with seating areas or planting to break up the space, and he stood with his hand in the small boy’s, waiting.

Then Napoleon was at his side again with the clamour of the other boys and the clatter of luggage being put down, and Illya said, ‘Thank you, Ahmed. You were very helpful,’ and he gave him a handful of coins. The boy crowed with delight and pressed his hand and said, ‘You need me, I guide again,’ and with Illya’s promise that he could, he left.

And then they were alone, and Napoleon said close to his ear, ‘Don’t move, dear. There are cases all around you. Let me get us checked in.’

A moment later the cases were being whisked away by silent bellhops, and Illya stood there still, in the middle of this big space, until Napoleon came back to him and said, ‘Hey, Illya, you wanted the pyramids. Come over here.’

And he led him through the cool, air conditioned space and took one of Illya’s hands and Illya felt cool bronze under his fingertips. There was the Sphinx with the jagged wound where the Napoleonic troops had shot her nose from her face. He felt her paws and her smooth back, and he reached out tentatively with his other hand and found the rough stepped sides of the Great Pyramid of Giza where Cheops was entombed, and its smaller brothers not far away.

He remembered the last time he had been in Cairo, remembered the sun setting over the pyramids and the heat shimmering from the sand and the tourists gasping in awe, and how he and Napoleon had chased Sarraf for a mile darting in and out of the ruins, sand in their throats and dust in their lungs and the heat around them like an oppressive cloak. He laid his hands over that bronze model and just remembered. And then a voice said in agitation, ‘Oh, no, sir, no touch, no touch,’ and the man touched his arm, and he dropped his hands from the model as Napoleon tried to explain that Illya was blind. The man started saying, ‘Oh, many apologies, many apologies. Yes, we make special case,’ and he took Illya’s arm by the wrist and plumped his hand back on the Sphinx’s head and started to explain the history of the monument in broken English.

‘Thank you, I know,’ Illya said awkwardly, removing his hand again and clutching it around his cane. ‘Thank you. Yes. If we could just go to our room? It’s been a long journey.’

‘You are here for business? Pleasure?’ the man asked, and Napoleon said, ‘Er, just a spot of sightseeing,’ and Illya snorted laughter at the irony.

  


((O))

  


They had hardly settled in the room before there was a knock on the door. Napoleon answered it and Illya paused in opening his case to listen as a very polished voice said, ‘As a courtesy, for you and Mr Kuryakin, hoping that your stay is a pleasant one. Ah, Mr Kuryakin, if you please – ’

Illya shut the case and turned, tentatively moving towards the door with his cane because he knew nothing more about this room yet than the route from the door to the case stand at the end of the bed. Napoleon came and took his elbow and led him safely to the door. Illya smelt an exotic blend of hair product and aftershave and tobacco and the man said, ‘Mr Kuryakin, with courtesy to you, if there is anything that you need or any help we may offer, please telephone to reception, and someone will be very pleased to come immediately.’

And then his hand was being shaken and Illya returned the grip, feeling rather bemused, and said, ‘Well, thank you. It’s very much appreciated.’

And Napoleon added, ‘We’ll be sure to mention this if we have to recommend a hotel in Cairo. Thank you, Mr Koura.’

‘Ah, you are very generous. Very generous. I hope that you enjoy your stay.’

And then the man was gone and Illya asked, ‘Was he on the level? My radar’s all off.’

‘Mr Koura,’ Napoleon mused. ‘He’s the manager of this hotel, and I think he was on the level. He also left this – ’ And cellophane crackled.

‘And _this_ is?’

‘A basket of sweetmeats, I think,’ Napoleon said, and the cellophane crackled again. ‘Wait, let me take a look at it. Come and sit down. I’ll show you the room when we’ve investigated this.’

And he took Illya by the elbow again and Illya let him lead him to a low sofa. He reached out after he sat and felt a table in front of him that seemed to be made of metal and glass.

‘Modern place, isn’t it?’ Illya commented. ‘I bet there’s a lot of orange in this room.’

Napoleon laughed. ‘I don’t think it existed this time last year. Now, let’s have a look at this...’

‘Be careful,’ Illya couldn’t help but say. He had always been the explosives expert.

‘No, it’s all right, Illya,’ Napoleon murmured, and Illya listened to him deconstructing the package. ‘It’s what it seems to be. Mostly Turkish delight I think. Here, cast your nose over that.’

So Illya took a small, squashy cube between his fingertips and inhaled the rose scent, and then took a tiny bite.

‘Seems fine,’ he shrugged. ‘Looks like the manager was just extending courtesy to his handicapped guest.’

He gave a crooked little smile, and Napoleon nudged against his shoulder warmly.

‘You’re here because you’re able, Illya, not disabled.’

Illya smiled properly then. It was hard to believe he was really here, in this modern, air conditioned, sterile room. It was hardly a romantic little ramshackle place with a flavour of Egypt, but he was  _here_ .

‘Do the windows open?’ he asked.

‘Better than that – there’s a balcony,’ Napoleon said crossing the room and opening the doors. ‘Come over here. There’s nothing in your way.’

So Illya crossed the room and his cane bumped on the little sill, and he stepped out onto a tiled balcony with a metal railing around the edge, and let the heat and sounds rise around him. He really was here. He could feel it all around him, feel it in the warm air. Napoleon slipped an arm around his waist and took his hand with his other arm and pointed with it and said, ‘ _Now_ I can see the Sphinx and the pyramids, just over there, and the sun isn’t setting behind them but they do look like they’re made of gold because the sun’s low in the sky. But there are still people out there. They look like ants churning around the base.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘And I think I can see a camel, too.’

So Illya smiled and leant his head back against Napoleon’s shoulder and said, ‘Thank you, Napoleon. Thank you for the Sphinx and the pyramids and the camel, and thank you for trusting in me.’

  


((O))

  


Later they walked through narrow streets and Illya held his cane loosely and mostly just relied on Napoleon to guide him through the hustling pedestrians and around hazards. The light was dim in his eyes now but the air was still warm and filled with those scents of food and smoke. He heard beggars calling out and children tagged on in their path and sometimes Napoleon flipped them a coin and sometimes he ignored them. Illya just felt entranced to be here. For this first evening there were no duties to perform. Later Napoleon would have to go out to set the bugs, but for now they had their leisure to get over the achingly long trip and just relax.

‘Do you know where we’re going, Napoleon?’ he asked as they walked along an uneven pavement and voices rose around them, trying to sell them wares.

‘Humph,’ Napoleon said. ‘Anyone would think I have a bad sense of direction.’

‘You remember Sicily?’ Illya asked him archly. ‘You remember trying to find that restaurant in Rome?’

‘I’d like to see _you_ find us somewhere to eat.’

Illya snorted. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘I would just follow my nose.’

‘Don’t make me make you try,’ Napoleon warned him, then his voice turned away and he said, ‘No, no, thank you. I have enough brass pots at home, thank you. Many brass pots.’

‘In fact, you’re saying that you’re potty,’ Illya commented.

‘Watch it, shorty,’ Napoleon grumbled, but Illya felt insanely happy to be walking like this with his arm linked in Napoleon’s, in this warmth, in this noisy, claustrophobic, life-filled place. The world seemed alive with scents and sounds, and he wished he could see the street around him, but the richness of what he could sense was really enough. Napoleon kept murmuring to him about what he could see, and he built up his own picture.

Napoleon took him into a cramped-seeming restaurant filled with music and voices and led him to a table and a low, sofa-like seat. Illya sat back just listening to his surroundings while Napoleon spent some time puzzling over the menu, which was only in Arabic. Illya itched to be able to glance at the words and see what he could pick out and for a moment he scratched his fingertips along the edge of the table in frustration, but then a waiter brought them a menu in English and Napoleon read out the dishes. Illya settled for  _dolma_ , while Napoleon ordered  _moussaka,_ and they sat sipping thick mango juice while they waited for their food.

It felt slightly unreal to Illya. He had spent so long barely venturing away from New York City, apart from a few snatched weekends with Napoleon in places close enough to drive. He treasured those weekends, but they had still been in America, in little guest houses or rented cottages, and that had been a long way from the life he had been used to. Sometimes in the past he had visited as many as four continents in one week. They had spoken about taking a trip abroad, but somehow it had just never happened, not with Napoleon’s job still so fluctuating and varied.

In the early days he had barely been able to imagine stirring from the apartment. It had been hard enough just getting to know his way around Napoleon’s place, which was familiar but not as intimately familiar as his own apartment. His bedroom was a haven, because Napoleon had gone to enormous lengths to make it familiar, taking photographs and making sure the movers replicated the room perfectly in Napoleon’s old study. But as for the rest of the apartment, with the added influx of his own possessions and some treasured items of furniture, he had spent days learning where everything was and gathering bruises every time he got it wrong. He hadn’t been able to face the idea of going to new places, even to go out with Napoleon to the store when he urged him to come, or to take a walk around the block. It had all seemed so terrible, so wrong. He hadn’t wanted to be seen, and he had been glad that the blurred white glare of his sight gave him the excuse to wear sunglasses, because he knew his eyes looked different and he didn’t want anyone to see them.

The first time he agreed to walk outside with Napoleon he had felt terrible, so conspicuous, so incapable. He had clung to his arm and stumbled and the city sounds had been a confusing jangle in his ears, and after a few hundred yards he had said, ‘Please take me home, Napoleon. Take me home.’ He couldn’t stand it, and he had got back to the safety of the apartment and then smashed his hand so hard into his bedroom door that the dents in the wood were still there. He had screamed and raged at Napoleon, and Napoleon had taken his anger, let it fall off him and run away, and then Illya had cried again and Napoleon had held him as he stood there shaking, so scared of what the future held. And then Napoleon had finally managed to persuade him to enrol in the rehabilitation school, and everything had started to change.

He sat here now in this busy little restaurant with the light flickering across his eyes, and he held out his hand and felt the heat of a lit candle in the centre of the table. There must be candles on most of the tables, and perhaps in other places, because the whole place seemed to be aflicker. And he listened to Napoleon’s chatter and had no problem separating it from all the other voices as he had used to. He could hear the sizzling and clashing and raised voices from the kitchen and smell so many different foods and spices in the air and hear the continual murmur of the other patrons, and he listened to Napoleon’s voice as if it were the only thing that mattered.

‘I’ll slip out later,’ Napoleon was saying, ‘and I’ll get everything into place, and that leaves you free to start the monitoring tomorrow. But to all intents and purposes we’re just friends on vacation, and we need to keep playing that part. I’ll have to keep taking you out to dinner and sharing long strolls in the evening, I’m afraid,’ he said with mock ruefulness.

Illya smiled, sitting there and tracing his fingers over the edge of the table and the fabric of the seat cushion. There were so many different textures right here.

‘It is a hard life,’ he said.

And then the plates were being put down before them and Napoleon leant forward and made sure Illya could find his cutlery and said, ‘I’d use the clock system but it’s not exactly meat and two veg, so you’d best just dig in.’

It was good. It was wonderful. There was enough exotic food for the finding in New York City, but it was so good to be in another country again and with the thrill of an imminent mission running through his veins. They ate and then they walked back along the evening streets, and went in to the bar at the hotel and enjoyed a couple of drinks, and Illya felt so happy as he followed Napoleon’s arm back up to the room. It was such a modern, well-appointed place that there were twin beds, not a cosy little double, but that was all right. They slipped together into Illya’s bed and Illya entwined himself around Napoleon and made love with him, and it all felt perfect.


	5. Chapter 5

The thrill was there again at three a.m., as Napoleon slipped into black jeans and a black t-shirt and Illya smelt the familiar scent of the black grease paint that would help him slip in unseen.

‘You’re not putting it on yet?’ he asked.

‘No, just checking,’ Napoleon said, and screwed the lid back on the tin. ‘No, I don’t want to look like Al Jolson if anyone picks me up. I’ll slip out through the back entrance and only put on the paint when I’m outside the place.’

And Illya listened to him strapping on his holster and checking his gun, and a new thrill ran through him. He reached out to touch Napoleon, to feel his firm muscles through the brief t-shirt and to feel the supple leather of his holster and the weight of his gun at his side.

‘Be careful,’ he said, and Napoleon chuckled.

‘I’m always careful,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Illya replied, but the worry was there. Napoleon was perfectly good at this sort of thing, but creeping and climbing and breaking and entering had always been Illya’s forte, and had everything been as it should be, he would have been going along, Napoleon hovering outside on guard and Illya slipping in through a skylight or something and placing the bugs where no one would ever think to look.

‘I do this all the time when you’re home in New York,’ Napoleon assured him, reading his thoughts. He touched a finger to Illya’s nose and then kissed it affectionately. ‘Don’t worry, button. You just curl up in bed and I’ll be back before you know it.’

Illya gave a hollow laugh. He wouldn’t be sleeping until Napoleon returned. He was sure of that. When Napoleon left he opened his case and dithered between the single volume of Camus that he had brought, only a third of the book because in Braille it just took up so much damn space, or the latest journal article that Sarah had so wonderfully taken the time to transcribe and print for him. He was so lucky to have someone who could do that; to have the vast resources of U.N.C.L.E. there and someone willing to spend time to give him things to read. Without U.N.C.L.E. he didn’t know where he would be.

He shook that thought away, because it didn’t help. He took a chair out onto the balcony and got a blanket because the night air was chilly, and he propped his feet on the edge of the balcony and picked up the Camus. After a few sentences he put that down and got the journal article instead, and folded that and his hands deep inside the blanket, and sat there slipping his fingers over the words and trying to take them in, but really just waiting for either his communicator to sound or for Napoleon to return.

When his communicator did trill, it took him by surprise. He had finally managed to focus his mind on the physics article, and it had set his thoughts racing. Then there was the familiar warble at his breast pocket, and he quickly assembled the device and said, ‘Kuryakin here.’

‘Illya,’ came Napoleon’s breathless voice. ‘I’ve been in. Bugs are set. No one saw me. I’ll be back asap.’

Illya breathed out his relief very quietly. He didn’t want Napoleon to hear it.

‘Good,’ he said simply. ‘A safe return.’

‘Thank you, _mon cher,’_ Napoleon said, and then he was gone.

Illya got to his feet, the blanket wrapped around him and the article, and felt his way back inside. He went straight to his cases and opened up his equipment case and got out the recorders and slipped the headphones over his ears. He switched the channel to the first bug and got the reassuring hiss of sound that showed it was alive. The second gave him little moments of muffled snores and grunts, and he grinned at Napoleon managing to creep into this man’s bedroom and get a bug so close without waking him. The third gave him that quiet hiss again, just night noises, nothing more. The fourth should be in the man’s wallet, and it wouldn’t always give the best quality sound but that was where Illya would come into his own, because he had grown so good at deciphering the mess of sound that came through these things. He switched to that one and found the same blank hiss, with occasional sleeping noises rather fainter than the bug by the bed. The man’s wallet was in his room, but not very close to him.

He flicked back to the second bug and just listened. The creak of bedsprings. The noise of the man turning in sleep. He sounded overweight; not obese, but large. The man grunted and gasped and the bed creaked again, and he got out of the bed and walked across the room. A small room, hard walls with little to soften them and probably a tiled floor. There was a door that creaked when he opened it, and then faintly the sound of urination and a return to bed. Illya smiled. The man hadn’t washed his hands. He drank. Illya heard the gulps deep in his throat. Then he set the glass back and sighed and settled back into bed. Not long after, snoring started again.

There was a noise beyond the headphones and Illya switched off the monitor and slipped the headphones off.

‘Napoleon?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ came Napoleon’s soft reply.

The door closed and Napoleon came across the room and Illya stood up and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. He sniffed at his fingertips. Cold cream, stronger than the greasepaint. Napoleon had cleaned it off before coming back into the hotel.

‘The bugs are sound,’ Illya said. ‘I’ve been listening to Mr Sharif’s sleeping habits. He is not very sanitary.’

‘Huh?’ Napoleon asked.

‘He does not wash his hands after using the toilet.’

Napoleon laughed then, and leaned in and kissed Illya on the lips. ‘You’re not going to let Waverly down,’ he said. ‘Uh, but perhaps I should wash my hands before I do anything else, going by what you said.’

So he went to the bathroom and Illya heard the tap run, then Napoleon came back. This time when he took Illya in his arms Illya felt his naked torso against him and he grinned and ran his hands over Napoleon’s muscles, firm and a little damp with sweat, and said, ‘You know, you are extremely distracting. Extremely.’

Napoleon kissed him and fingered Illya’s shirt and said, ‘You haven’t even undressed tonight. That’s very unsporting.’

‘I did undress, earlier,’ Illya reminded him. ‘Napoleon, really we should sleep.’

‘Hmm,’ Napoleon said. ‘Well, the early bird _does_ catch the worm. Which bed shall we squeeze into?’

Illya laughed and said, ‘I think in the interests of sleep,  _lyubimy_ , we should each take to our own beds tonight. Have you set the alarm?’

Napoleon sighed. ‘Yes, I’ve set the alarm, and it’s set for disturbingly soon. All right then, honey. Let’s sleep.’

  


((O))

  


Napoleon mooted the possibility of eating breakfast in the room, but Illya was anxious to become more familiar with the hotel, so after an hour of monitoring the bugs they took themselves downstairs and found a table in the dining room. The food was disappointingly western, but perhaps it was good to have some familiarity, because Illya was still muzzy headed after the long night and yesterday’s journey, and croissants and coffee were easy, at least.

‘Busy this morning,’ Napoleon said.

‘Yes, so I hear,’ Illya replied, turning his ear towards the room. There was a lot of clinking of cutlery against china and the sounds of footsteps and chairs scraping. He could hear a rich melange of languages, mostly spoken by men, it seemed. ‘Businessmen? A conference?’

‘Yeah, I think so. Doctors, if I had to guess. A lot of them seem to know one another, but not terribly well. The conference facilities here are the best in Cairo, apparently.’

‘Ah, I see.’

Illya touched his fingers to his plate, found it empty, and asked, ‘Is there anything else to eat around here?’

Napoleon chuckled. ‘I’ll have them kill the fatted calf. Or would you like a couple more croissants?’

‘I’ll settle for croissants,’ Illya said, so Napoleon got the attention of a waiter and not long after there were two more hot croissants on his plate and he was tearing into them with great pleasure. And then Napoleon suddenly said, ‘Illya, that’s our man, right over there by the bar. I don’t know what he’s doing here...’

‘You think someone’s picked up on our presence?’ Illya asked in a low voice. Perhaps they should have stayed upstairs. If he were in the room right now he could be listening to the wallet bug.

‘No, I don’t think so. He hasn’t sent so much as a glance our way. Maybe he’s meeting someone. I’d go over but if anyone did catch a glimpse of me last night...’

Illya shoved the last bit of croissant into his mouth and dusted off his front with his napkin, then got to his feet, cane in hand.

‘Where is he?’ he asked.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said in a low, warning voice.

‘Napoleon, don’t be ridiculous. You’d better get out of here. Where is he?’

Napoleon sighed. ‘The tables are lined up straight so if you step a pace back from your chair and turn ninety degrees to the right you have a straight run to the bar, about thirty yards away. There’s a step up separating the bar from the dining area. There are stools along the bar and you can buy alcohol or hot drinks. At the point you’ll hit the bar, he’s about three yards to the right. No one else is sitting on that side. The bar is curved.’

‘Yes, I remember from last night.’

Illya took off his glasses and put them in his pocket, because he knew his pupils were milky and his eyes looked blind, and who would suspect that a blind man were a spy? He turned his back on the table and struck out into the open space. The many murmuring voices at the other tables helped him to keep to his path, and then he found the step, then the cane clattered into what were probably the legs of a bar stool. He moved a little way to the right, palming his hand on the top of each stool, then sat down.

‘Just a coffee,’ he said when the barman asked him what he wanted. ‘Black. Large.’

Then he held out a handful of coins and the man’s fingers plucked out the right change. He received his coffee and curled his hands around the cup, and angled his body a little away from the man he could sense a couple of seats away from him. The man was drinking, and there was the same heaviness in his breathing and movements that he had heard through the bug last night. He sipped at his coffee, and wondered if Napoleon were going up to the room to listen to the bug. It was undoubted that Illya had a much better vantage point here, though.

Footsteps approached and someone else sat down, and Illya knocked his cane where it was leant up against the bar and it clattered to the floor.

‘Oh, er – excuse me,’ Illya said rather deferentially. ‘Could you help? My cane. I’m not sure where it went.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ a man replied, in an American accent. Illya held out his hand and received the cane, and was pretty sure that the man had got a good view of his damaged eyes. He smiled and put the cane between his knees, and thanked the man, reaching out clumsily to pat his side, then turning back to his drink. That was enough. He would almost certainly be discounted by the pair now.

He lifted his coffee and took a sip, and listened. The Egyptian addressed the American as Leon. The American called the Egyptian Abdul, but Illya already knew that was his name. They spoke obliquely, not quite in riddles, but so that any casual observer would suspect nothing about the true nature of their conversation. But Illya knew exactly what their conversation centred around. Mr Sharif was engaged in trafficking large amounts of drugs out of the country and into America, where their sale would boost Thrush’s coffers by millions of dollars. Illya had to assume that Leon was Sharif’s American contact and the meeting they were discussing was to pass on the drugs. They were haggling about prices, and Illya didn’t particularly care how much money Leon was standing to lose or gain in this exchange, so he concentrated on the clues he could gain from his voice and movements instead. He didn’t recognise the man’s voice, which was a relief, because he had encountered so many Thrush men in the past that it was quite possible he would be recognised by the wrong person. Leon sounded as if he came from the west coast of the US. He was drinking beer, while Sharif seemed to be drinking coffee. While he sat there Leon lit up a cigarette which Illya was pretty sure had been made by Malborough. When he moved suit fabric rustled, and his shoes tapped occasionally on the foot rest of the bar stool and sounded light, much like any businessman might wear. He didn’t really need a physical description of the man, because Napoleon had probably stayed around long enough to get a look at him, but in case he hadn’t he stored those details in his mind.

He drained his coffee and slipped off the stool before the conversation to the right of him had wound down. From long experience he was sure that he had heard all that was vital to hear, and to leave while the men were still there was far less suspicious than nursing his drink and waiting for them to finish. He rapped his knuckles on the bar and asked, ‘Er, excuse me?’ and when the barman came over he said, ‘I wonder if someone could give me some help back to my room?’

‘Certainly, sir, certainly,’ the barman said quickly, and a moment later a slim Egyptian woman was holding his arm and saying, ‘Which is your room, sir?’

‘Oh, please, let me hold like this,’ he said, rearranging things so that he was holding her arm with his left hand and his cane arm was still free. There were very few people, really only Napoleon and Sarah, that he trusted to guide him without also using the cane and a good deal of personal awareness to be sure of his step. In the early days he had had far too many experiences of guides who had led him off kerbs without warning him, or let him walk into signposts or overhanging trees, of people who had told him the road was clear to cross just before a car appeared, or not noticed dog mess on the pavement. The dog mess was something the cane couldn’t help with either, and he despised it, but there was little he could do about that.

Napoleon had learnt so much, really. It had been almost as steep a learning curve for him as for Illya. It was rare now that a door in their apartment wasn’t either fully open or fully closed, because early on Illya had walked into half-open doors far too many times. He always told Illya on which side the door was hinged, he always warned him of kerbs or steps or low ceilings and overhanging objects. He knew Illya relied on absolute order in the apartment and in the office so he could find things, and he was almost more rigid about those things now than Illya was himself. Really, he was very good. He couldn’t imagine a better person to live with.

‘Oh, it’s Suite thirty-seven,’ he told the young woman guiding him as soon as he was far enough away from the pair at the bar. He didn’t want to naively tell them exactly where he was staying, just in case they did suspect.

‘Ah, thank you, sir,’ she replied.

He smiled a little. He could feel her nervousness through her arm, and through the way she walked.

‘I rarely bite,’ he told her in a confidential tone.

‘Oh – I – er – I beg your pardon, sir?’ she asked, flustered.

He laughed then. ‘There is no need to be so nervous,’ he told her. ‘I’m only blind. I don’t bite girls who are kind enough to help me.’

‘Oh.’ She laughed lightly, then said, ‘This is the elevator now,’ and Illya halted while she stopped to press the call button, and when the doors slid open he tapped his cane against the metal edge of the open doors. ‘Have you always been blind?’ she asked as he followed her into the small room with its sharp, quick echoes.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘No, not always,’ he said. ‘No. Almost two years.’

‘Oh,’ she said again, then said, ‘I – don’t know if I should say that I’m sorry.’

That made him smile again. ‘If you want to be sorry, you may be,’ he told her graciously. ‘I try not to be too sorry because I have no choice but to be blind and I have to live my life.’

He remembered those awful, awful days of raging anger and pain. He remembered how much of Napoleon’s crockery he had broken in anger, and pressing his fingers over his shins and arms to work out how many new bruises he had got each day, and standing on the kerb of the street with Napoleon and wondering how easy it would be just to pull away from him and step out in front of a passing bus. He had screamed and raged and wept at the injustice, at how his life had been destroyed, at how he had become a helpless cripple in a world full of happy people with working eyes. And then, as with all grief, the storm had slowly passed. Crying did not work as a kind of last-minute irrigation of the acid-damaged corneas. Nothing would make his eyes better. He had seen three different ophthalmologists in New York and they had all told him that the burning was too bad, too deep, the eyes were too damaged and nothing could be done.

Really it was Napoleon who had saved him. It was Napoleon who persuaded him in the end that he had no choice but to go to the rehabilitation college, that he couldn’t spend every day in bitter misery and every evening trying to make it go away with scotch or vodka. It was Napoleon who patiently tried to teach him techniques for managing that he’d picked up from leaflets and friendly advice and books from the library. It was Napoleon who convinced him in the end that the only way to live was to adapt, and he had gone with him, sick with nerves, to the college, where they had welcomed him and enrolled him on the earliest possible programme, and for months after that he had spent his days learning to live again. It was Napoleon who persuaded him that U.N.C.L.E. could still use him, and had persuaded Waverly of the same thing, and then in making enquiries for an assistant to help him in his job they had found Sarah, and everything had come together in a beautiful whole. It had been strange at first going back to U.N.C.L.E. and learning to do a useful job without sight, but he had managed that too, and most of the shock and awkwardness in the other personnel had worn off the longer he spent around them, and almost everyone had been kind and helpful and bent over backwards to accommodate him.

‘The door again,’ the girl guiding him said, and he followed her out of the elevator. ‘It was Suite Thirty-seven you said, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Illya nodded. ‘Thirty-seven. Thank you.’

He trailed the cane along the wall to his right, counting the doors as they passed them. There were six, and then the woman stopped and turned to the left and said, ‘Have you your key, sir?’

‘Oh.’ Illya dropped her arm and felt in his pocket and drew out the key.

‘Would you like me to – ’

‘No, thank you.’ He found the door frame first and then brushed his hands over the door at waist height and found the keyhole. It was better to be able to do this himself. But as he was trying to get the key into the lock the door suddenly opened, and Napoleon said, ‘Illya!’

Illya turned briefly to the woman who had helped him and said, ‘Thank you very much. Don’t be nervous again, will you?’

And she laughed a little and promised not to be, and left.

Napoleon tugged Illya inside and closed the door and kissed him.

‘You mad, crazy Russian,’ he said. ‘I was listening on the monitor, you know. I heard you asking for someone to bring you up here.’

‘ _That_ much you heard,’ Illya said. ‘But did your cauliflower ears pick up anything else?’

‘From the man’s wallet, in his pocket? Not as much as I would have liked. It’s a tricky place for a bug. You would have done better, Illya. You’re better at picking these things out. But tell me what you heard. Anything good?’

Illya smiled and followed Napoleon’s hand in his to the sofa. He dropped down next to Napoleon and said, ‘They will be meeting again tonight at a warehouse, where the American will inspect the merchandise. Eleven p.m., they decided on. The American is called Leon. Sharif never used his surname. Did you see him?’

‘Briefly,’ Napoleon said. ‘I didn’t want to hang around once he turned up because I’m sure I’ve seen him before. Clean shaven, dark hair, grey suit, cheap shoes. I think he’s Leon Michea, works in Thrush’s drugs arm. Did you get the location of the warehouse?’

Illya shook his head. ‘ _The warehouse._ That’s all they said. They both knew where they were talking about so they had no need to mention the address.’

‘Hmm. I’ll need to follow him,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘Well, that’s tonight’s activities sorted. You stay on the bugs and I’ll trail Sharif.’

‘Talking of the bugs,’ Illya said with a grin. ‘We now have a fifth.’

‘Huh?’ Napoleon asked. ‘Oh, Illya, you didn’t?’

His grin broadened. ‘I did.’

‘How the hell?’

‘I dropped my cane. Just to make sure they could see I was really blind, you know. When the man picked it up for me I reached out to thank him, and – ’

‘Illya, you’re incredible,’ Napoleon said. ‘But if he finds it and realises it’s you – ’

Illya shrugged. ‘It’s a risk, but an acceptable one. No, I’m pretty sure he got a good look at my eyes and this doesn’t look fake, does it?’ he asked, gesturing vaguely at his eyes.

‘No, Illya,’ Napoleon said rather ruefully. ‘No, it doesn’t look fake.’

Illya smiled and reached out to stroke Napoleon’s cheek. ‘It’s all right, you know. I’m all right. Look at where we are, Napoleon. We’re out here, in the field. I know it’s not everything I used to have, and I’d be stupid to pretend it doesn’t get to me sometimes, but I’m all right. I get through each day.’

‘Hmm, you do,’ Napoleon said warmly, reaching out himself to brush his fingers through Illya’s fringe. ‘You get through amazingly.’

‘I’m nothing special,’ Illya cautioned him. He always felt uneasy when people, even Napoleon, implied that in his blindness he was something special.

‘Oh, but you are,’ Napoleon told him. ‘No, regardless of your blindness. You were special before that. You’re the brightest person I’ve ever met. You with your doctorate from Cambridge. I was in awe of you on paper before I saw you, and then when I set eyes on you – god...’

Illya smiled. ‘Now, Napoleon, you’re not telling me you were smitten with me from the moment you set eyes on me. You spent most of our partnership seducing beautiful women.’

Napoleon chuckled. ‘Maybe I did, and men too, Illya, although I always kept that one under the carpet. But that didn’t mean I didn’t look at you.’

Illya leant his head against Napoleon’s shoulder and Napoleon’s fingers kept stroking at his hair. ‘Oh, yes, I do remember that. The amount of times I caught you with your eyes on me. The amount of times I was sure you were flirting with me. But then I thought you’d flirt with anything that had a pulse.’

Napoleon laughed at that. ‘Well, maybe I would, but I never really let myself feel anything until I settled with you.’

‘I miss your eyes,’ Illya said after a moment. ‘I do miss your eyes.’ And he felt it, sharp and strong in his throat. He was happy enough now. He was. It was just that sometimes he missed everything so much. He took those feelings and tamped them down and sat on them, but then sometimes they erupted and felt so strong.

‘Come on,’ he said briskly. ‘I want to see if that bug took.’

‘I didn’t even know you had any,’ Napoleon said, taking him by the elbow and helping him over to the case with the monitoring equipment in it.

‘I like to be prepared,’ he said with a flashing smile.

He sat down at the little table and opened the case and turned on the machine, then tuned the frequency to the fifth bug and set it as a preset. He picked up the headphones and slipped them on and heard rustling, joggling sounds, voices speaking in Arabic, cars and car horns.

‘He’s walking,’ he said briefly. ‘He hasn’t found the bug.’

That was good. The longer it went unnoticed the less likely they would be to associate it with him. Anyone could have slipped it into his jacket on the busy streets of Cairo.

‘Well,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s going to be a long, tedious day, I think, Napoleon.’

Napoleon patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We can take turns, and I’ll be sure to keep you well fed.’

Illya grinned. ‘Well, that’s the main thing. We’ll take dinner in the room and just listen in, and when you go out to track Sharif later, I’ll be listening in and I’ll pass you any info that you need.’


	6. Chapter 6

When Illya found himself drifting off from the tedium of listening to bugs that mostly told him nothing, Napoleon knocked him on the shoulder and said, ‘Take a break, IK. I’ll do a shift. ’

So Illya slipped the earphones off and stretched his spine and shook his arms a little because he had been reading his Camus as he listened and his fingertips felt odd after so long passing over the pages. He wished he had brought more to read with him, because he was coming to the end of the Camus and wanted to read the rest, and he had read the journal article three times.

He remembered how long it had taken to learn to read the tactile writing in the first place. He had despaired at first, and his tutor had told him that some people just didn’t have the sensitivity to be able to do it. But he was relatively young and seemed to have a good touch, and it was likely he would make it. He brought Braille cards home from the school in the evening and sat there running his hands over them, almost crying with frustration because it just made no sense, and Napoleon had sat next to him and laid his hands over Illya’s and softly told him to calm down, to take a break, to try again later, tomorrow, another time.

Those had been hard days. At first Napoleon took leave and he was there with Illya whenever he needed him, but by the time Illya was at the school Napoleon was back at work, and although Waverly went beyond the call of duty trying to keep him to jobs that kept him local or in the office, sometimes he just had to be away. So Illya would find himself holed up in the apartment, refusing the help of an assistant or any of his colleagues from U.N.C.L.E. who offered to stay, taking cabs to and from the school and just sitting in the apartment at night with the lights off, listening to the radio and eating take out or leftovers, and practising his Braille.

And he had done it. Slowly he had managed it. He had started to distinguish the letters one from the other, started to read words and then sentences, and then learnt the abbreviations and other symbols. Meanwhile he was spending hours every week learning to walk with a cane, learning how to read the landscape, how to keep himself straight along the sidewalks, what landmarks to look out for, how to cross roads. Sometimes when he got home at night, when Napoleon wasn’t there, he just fell onto the sofa, hand aching from holding the cane, brain aching from the fierce concentration, his mind churning on everything he had been taught that day by his instructor, who was just as blind as he was. He would lie there and fall asleep just like that, because it was so tiring adjusting to all these new things. Then his communicator would sound and he would answer it, and Napoleon’s voice would almost always lift him up, even when he was at the edge of despair.

‘I wonder if they have a Braille library in Cairo,’ he mused as he shut his book. He was a pretty fast reader now, even if it still felt frustratingly slow compared to his sight reading speed.

‘Hmm,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. I think most of their blind are begging on the streets.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite true,’ Illya said a little uncomfortably. ‘But I suppose even if they did the chance of there being books in a language I can read and available for me to borrow are...’ He shook his head. ‘I should concentrate on the task at hand.’

‘ _Not_ for the next couple of hours,’ Napoleon told him firmly. ‘Take a break. You’ll be a better listener when you come back to it. ’

Illya stretched his shoulders and massaged one a little. ‘You’re probably right. I think I will take a stroll down to the bar and grab a coffee. I could do with stretching my legs. ’

He felt Napoleon’s reaction. ‘Want me to call someone up to take you down? Or I could take five minutes from this –  ’

‘No, no. I counted the doors on the way up. I can manage.’

Napoleon didn’t argue with him, and he was grateful for that. He got his cane and checked he had his wallet and communicator, then kissed Napoleon and left the room. Six doors on the left, and then the elevator. The call buttons were triangular, the triangles pointing up and down. He stepped into the elevator when it came, and felt for the panel, which was usually a little above waist height. The buttons were inscribed with their numbers, thankfully. He felt a bell shape on the alarm button, more arrows on the buttons to close and open the doors, and a row of buttons with numbers between 1 and 12. He pressed 1, and waited.

He found his way into the restaurant with relative ease, and stood in the doorway for a moment with his head tilted a little to one side, listening to the sounds. It was a little after lunchtime, so there were plenty of people at the tables, which helped him to orient himself as he walked through the room. The carpet was soft and stole the echoes, which made things a little harder, but he made it across the room and found the step up to the bar, and then stood there for a moment listening before asking, ‘Er, excuse me? Is there a seat free here?’

‘Oh, er – ’ It was a man’s voice, slightly accented. ‘Yes, yes, there is a seat right here, just in front of you.’

So Illya felt out with the cane and found the stool and hoisted himself up.

‘You’re – excuse me asking – are you here for the ophthalmological conference?’ the man asked.

Illya frowned a little. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry. I see a lot of blindness in my line of work and sometimes at these conferences a patient will come along either as a speaker or as an interested listener. You’re  _ not _ here for the ophthalmological conference?’

Illya shook his head. ‘No, I am merely on vacation. It must be a coincidence. I didn’t know about any ophthalmological conference.’

‘Ah, well I apologise for my mistake. May I buy you a drink, Mr – ’

‘Kuryakin,’ Illya supplied, but his natural caution kicked in. ‘Er – excuse me asking, but do you have any way of proving your identity? I assume you’re a conference member?’

‘Ah, yes, I am an eye surgeon, Mr Kuryakin. Most of us here are. My name is Dr Bruner. I do have an identity card but I’m afraid it will mean very little to you if you have no sight, and by the appearance of your eyes I would assume – ’

‘Yes, I wouldn’t be able to read a card,’ Illya smiled slightly apologetically.

‘Perhaps a display of expertise?’ the man asked. ‘If you do not mind. By the appearance of your eyes and the faint degree of scarring in the surrounding tissue I would say that they were burned by acid or alkali. More likely acid, I think, and I would guess that you did not irrigate the eyes in time. Am I correct?’

Illya dropped his head and fiddled momentarily with his cane. ‘Well, yes, that is what happened,’ he murmured. The memory always made him feel a little nauseous.

‘Now, about that drink?’

‘Oh, only a coffee, please, Dr Bruner,’ Illya smiled. ‘Espresso.’

‘Of course,’ the man replied, and passed the order on to the barman. ‘Myself, I’m afraid my weakness is the occasional pint of lager. Only when off duty, of course.’

‘Ah, well,’ Illya said. He had never been very comfortable holding conversations with strangers, and he couldn’t help but feel that this man’s interest in him was more medical than personal.

‘I wonder, Mr Kuryakin, why you haven’t been considered as a candidate for corneal transplant,’ the man mused as Illya received his coffee. ‘If it’s not too personal a question, of course. I understand there can be many factors… But looking at the amount of healing that’s gone on with the burns on your face, I assume you’ve been blind for a few years now?’

It  _ did  _ feel like too personal a question. This whole conversation was too personal. Illya rotated his tiny cup of coffee in his hands and inhaled the scent. It was rich and strong and made his eyes a little wider even before he had tasted it.

‘Two years,’ he said into the cup. Then he shrugged. What was the harm in talking about it? ‘The damage was considered too bad. I consulted a number of ophthalmologists in New York and none of them were willing to take on the case. They said the corneal graft would not take. So that was that.’

‘I see,’ the man nodded.

Illya felt rather weary of this discussion, and decided to turn it to his own advantage. ‘I don’t suppose, doctor, that you know of anywhere local where I could procure Braille books? I read quite a few languages, English, French, and Russian, of course, and a number of others with a little less fluency. I am a third of the way through Camus’s  _ L’Étranger _ and I left the other two volumes in New York. It is very frustrating running out of reading material.’

‘Ah, well, I’m afraid I certainly don’t have anything like that in my possession,’ the man said with an apologetic chuckle. ‘I could make enquiries. Some of the local men may have an idea. If I find anything out – ’

‘You could leave a message at reception,’ Illya smiled. He didn’t want to give out his room number. ‘Thank you, doctor. That’s very kind of you.’

He finished his coffee and pushed the cup a little further on to the bar, then nodded in the doctor’s direction.

‘Thank you, Dr Bruner,’ he said again, ‘for the drink, and for your help.’

‘Oh, of course,’ the man replied.

He slipped down from the stool, and then tilted his ear at what seemed like familiar footsteps.

‘Napoleon?’ he asked curiously.

‘The one and the same,’ Napoleon replied in his smooth, beautiful voice. ‘Our friend is having a siesta,’ he explained, ‘so I thought I’d come find you.’

‘Ah, of course,’ Illya nodded, then a thought struck him. ‘Napoleon Solo, this is Dr Bruner. Dr Bruner is attending an ophthalmological conference at the hotel, Napoleon.’

‘Ah, so that explains all of the men with little black bags,’ Napoleon said in a jovial tone. Illya recognised it so well. It was Napoleon’s way of putting people off their guard, of making them underestimate him.

‘Of course, I couldn’t check his card, but – ’ Illya continued.

‘Ah,’ Napoleon said, and then the doctor added in a slightly embarrassed tone, ‘Of course I understand your hesitation, Mr Kuryakin. After all, it doesn’t do for the blind to trust everyone who speaks to them.’

‘No,’ Illya said a little awkwardly.

‘Here, Mr Solo. My card,’ the man said, and Illya heard the sound of him getting something from his wallet.

‘Dr Georg Bruner, Munchen,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘Well, that’s fascinating, Dr Bruner. You don’t mind if I keep this? No?’ And Illya heard him slip the card into his pocket. ‘I’m sure you had a lot to talk with Illya about.’

‘Well, just a little,’ the man replied.

‘Illya, I thought you might like to take a bit of a stroll around,’ Napoleon said, and Illya tried not to show his relief. As he took his leave of the doctor the man said, ‘Mr Kuryakin, I’d like to take a closer look at your eyes at some point, if I might. Corneal transplant is something of a speciality of mine and, forgive me for saying so without a proper examination, but I don’t think your case seems beyond hope.’

Illya clenched down on that sudden spark of hope that threatened to erupt inside him. He waited a moment before speaking, then said very carefully, ‘Well, I would be happy to let you take a look. Perhaps tomorrow, doctor.’

‘Tomorrow,’ the man echoed.

Illya closed his hand so hard on Napoleon’s arm that Napoleon hissed as they walked away.

‘Sorry,’ Illya said. ‘Sorry, Napoleon. I didn’t mean to hang on so hard.’

‘Well, I don’t blame you,’ Napoleon said in a strange voice. ‘You heard what he said.’

‘Yes...’

They walked out into the heat of the Egyptian afternoon.

He heard Napoleon uncap his communicator and say, ‘Open channel D,’ and at a soft woman’s voice he said, ‘Ah, Susan. Good morning, Susan. Or is it evening? I want you to check out a name. Dr Georg Bruner of Munich. Supposed to be an eye surgeon.’

‘Of course, Mr Solo,’ the woman replied immediately. ‘It will just be a moment.’

So Illya walked on, and a few minutes later the woman came back on and said, ‘Yes, Napoleon. He’s a surgeon in Munich. He’s registered with all the correct organisations. He’s real.’

‘Thank you,  _ cherie _ ,’ Napoleon replied, then slipped in, ‘I’ll be thinking of you in the New York winter as I stroll the streets of sunny Cairo. Well, Illya,’ he said as he put the pen away. ‘He’s real, at least.’

‘He’s real,’ Illya echoed.

The sun was bright against his eyes and he slipped out his sunglasses and put them on, then sighed as the light level dropped. That little spike of hope rose again and he clenched down on it furiously.

Napoleon took that moment to say, ‘You know, I miss those tinted reading glasses you used to wear. I always thought you looked so cute when you put them on, or when you sat there with the arm just in your mouth, biting on the end.’

‘Well I don’t  _ read  _ with my eyes any more,’ Illya said, flexing his fingers, and then wondered why he had spoken so viciously. ‘I’m sorry, Napoleon,’ he said.

He felt so deeply uneasy. He was used to his blindness now. He was used to all of it. He swung his cane in front of him as he walked. Left foot forward, tap right, right foot forward, tap left. The cane knocked against the concrete sidewalk and the taps it made provided him with echoes, and the echoes told him a little about what was around him. He could hear the high wall of the hotel to his left, and to his right he could hear the parked cars blocking the sound from the street and then letting it through again every time there was a gap, like light flickering through a rail fence. He could tell what the sidewalk was made of, and if he hadn’t been walking with Napoleon he could have let the stick tap on the side of the building or the edge of the sidewalk to keep himself straight. It told other people that he couldn’t see, and they got out of his way or restrained their children.

He had spent so long learning these things, not just with an instructor at his side, but afterwards, every day, every time he walked somewhere. Every time he set out from the apartment he looked out for the landmarks that told him where he was. The broken step on the stoop three doors down that always caught on the cane when he swung it that way. The two potted plants outside the deli on the next block. The scent of washing powder that came from the laundromat even when it was closed, telling him that he was almost at the end of that block and if he wanted to cross the road he had to be careful because the kerb was crooked and if he set off at right angles to it he wouldn’t hit the kerb on the other side. He knew all that, he had learnt all that. He had grabbed back his independence inch by painful inch, and he was proud of his progress.

It wasn’t just in walking with his cane, either. Every time he opened a Braille book he learnt a little more about how to read. He could tell some tins of food apart by the way the contents shifted when he shook them. Every day at work he got a bit better at finding his way about the office, about the corridors that all sounded the same. Everything he did made him a little better at being blind, a little better at being a blind person. And he could live like this. He missed his past life, but he could live like this. He had made his peace with the ghosts of hope. He understood that there was nothing that could be done. He would live like this and he would die like this. He never expected to see another sunrise or another blue sky. He never expected to see Napoleon growing old. Napoleon would always be just as he remembered him. Perhaps the feel of his body would change, but in his mind Napoleon would be young, black-haired, beautiful. That was a tiny gift of blindness.

He had understood when Napoleon called him over to that bronze diorama of the pyramids that that would be his way of experiencing them now. He had his memories and he could perhaps experience the sounds of the great structures, but he didn’t expect any more. He didn’t expect to stand there at his leisure and watch the sun go down, illuminating their ancient sides. The last time he had seen them he had hardly had time to appreciate it. He had been chasing a criminal, and more focussed on holding on to his life, and Napoleon’s, than sight-seeing. Perhaps if he had known that less than a year later he would be blind he would have looked more carefully, but then maybe that moment of carelessness would have killed him.

No. He ground his teeth in frustration. He didn’t know what to think about it all.

‘I’m walking us towards the pyramids,’ Napoleon said then. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Mind?’ His head jerked up. He had been so lost in thought that he had let go of all his awareness of where they were. ‘Why would I mind?’

Napoleon faltered. ‘Because you’re a man and you have opinions, Illya, and I didn’t ask you where you wanted to go,’ he said softly. ‘Do you mind walking towards the pyramids? I wanted a chance to see them up close. You know, without chasing a desperate man around in the sand.’

Illya should have laughed, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t work out how to give a correct emotional response, because instinctively he just wanted to give a biting, cutting reply to everything that Napoleon said, and that was ridiculous, because he wasn’t angry at Napoleon, not at all. So instead of laughing or even replying he ended up making a strange noise that was half hysterical, and Napoleon stopped walking and faced him and put a hand on either side of his face, and thank god he didn’t kiss him, not here, on the edge of Cairo, under everyone’s eyes.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘It’s all right. Come here. Come right over here and sit down. It’s a wall, a half-built wall. Half the area around the hotel is a building site. It’s not the most picturesque location, but sit down.’

So Illya sat on the rough and dusty wall and planted his feet solidly on the ground and held his cane between his out-flung knees, jittering it up and down on the concrete underfoot.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I just – I don’t know what to think.’

‘Illya, we’re on a mission,’ Napoleon said quietly, and Illya’s head jerked up.

‘I  _ know  _ that.’

‘Will you be able to focus when we get back?’

He groaned. ‘Yes. Yes, of course I will, Napoleon. I can focus now. We’re walking to the pyramids, yes? Of course I don’t mind that. I want for you to see them without ridiculous distractions. Come on. Let’s walk, so that we can get there and back before Mr Sharif finishes his siesta.’

And he stood up and held out his hand, and after a moment Napoleon let him take his arm, and carried on walking.

‘It’s just I’ve fought so  _ hard  _ to get where I am now,’ he burst out suddenly.

‘I know,’ Napoleon said.

‘And then this man, this man at a bar, tells me he thinks that New York’s most eminent ophthalmologists are wrong. I mean, who does he think he is to tell me that? He hasn’t even looked at my eyes, not properly. How dare he – ’

He broke off, shaking his head, trying to rein himself in again.

‘It’s too warm for trekking out to the pyramids,’ Napoleon said abruptly. ‘It’s too far. I’m sorry, Illya. We won’t get there and back in time. Let’s just go back to the hotel.’

‘Oh, Napoleon, I am so sorry,’ Illya said, contrite. ‘I am like Jekyll and Hyde because of that man. Yes. Let’s go back to the hotel. Let’s go and see the pyramids when we have time for you to appreciate them properly. If you don’t get a chance this time, we will make the time, take a proper holiday. Do you remember that holiday in Rome?’

He allowed himself to drift back to that warm memory, those first few halcyon days before Napoleon’s old flame had stepped in and ripped it all apart. It had been a good holiday, happy and warm. Even though they hadn’t yet discovered their true feelings about each other they had been close and happy, and looking back Illya understood the jealousy he had felt when Clara came on the scene, how relieved he had been when he realised she was married and loved her husband, how he had inwardly seethed at her using Napoleon’s feelings for her to get him to help him.

‘Ah, that was a good vacation,’ Napoleon said beside him. ‘Yes, it was good. But we never did find that restaurant...’

‘Well, that will be our next holiday. Egypt first, then Rome. We have years ahead of us, Napoleon. I want to enjoy them.’

And he realised that he did see that. That if, god willing, Napoleon survived his career they would have years and years together. They would holiday together and live together and sleep together, and they would be happy. It didn’t matter if he could see, because the world was so rich anyway, and he was walking through it with Napoleon.

  


((O))

  


Back in the hotel room Illya insisted on taking over the surveillance from Napoleon. He needed something to focus his mind. So he sat at the little table and slipped the earphones on, and listened to that man sleeping. He flicked between bugs. One, two, three, four, five. There was nothing of note on any of them. He rubbed his eyes and felt the very slight scarring that was still there on the surrounding skin, the scarring that the doctor had seen. He palpated it with his fingertip, and asked, ‘Napoleon, is the scarring very obvious?’

‘Huh?’ Napoleon sounded startled, almost as if he had been woken from a doze. ‘I’m sorry, honey? What?’

‘The scarring,’ Illya repeated. ‘My face. Is it very obvious?’

‘Oh – er – ’ Napoleon was taking a little while to come awake. Then he said, ‘No, Illya. No, I wouldn’t say it was that obvious at all. It’s faded so much from what it was at first. You wouldn’t be able to tell at a glance. It’s only when you get up close, when you really look.’

‘Is that true?’ Illya asked. He brushed his fingertip over a slightly rough place on his cheek, where there must be some sort of a scar.

‘That?’ Napoleon asked, coming to him and moving Illya’s finger aside to stroke over that place himself. ‘I can feel that, Illya, but I can’t see it. The skin’s maybe a very little shinier, but such a small amount. And around your eyes. No.’ He brushed his thumbs under Illya’s eyes. ‘No, I can feel it a little, and I suppose when you crease the skin it’s more noticeable, but it’s nothing, really. The kind of thing you only see if you’ve been told about it.’

‘But my eyes – ’

‘Well, yes. Yes, it’s obvious there,’ Napoleon said. ‘You know that. There’s a cloudiness over the pupils and it spreads over your irises. But still, your eyes look so much better than they used to as well. At first they were so red and sore. They’re better now.’

And he stroked his fingertips over Illya’s eyebrows and then kissed him softly.

‘Don’t think about it, Illya,’ he said. ‘Not at the moment.’

Illya smiled dryly. ‘I’m doing my best,’ he said.

He turned his attention back to the bugs. One, two, three, four, five… Five. There was something on five.

‘He’s talking,’ he murmured, his focus suddenly intense. He felt about with his right hand, asking, ‘Where’s my brailler?’ and Napoleon pushed the Braille typewriter closer. ‘Thank you.’

‘Who’s talking? Sharif?’

‘Michea. He’s – ’ But he couldn’t talk and concentrate on what he heard, so he pulled the brailler closer still and laid his fingers on the seven keys, and started to transcribe.

He could feel Napoleon very close behind him. By this time Napoleon was familiar enough with the dot combinations that he could usually work out what Illya was writing, but he often had to wait until the paper was fully pulled out and he could look at it in the right orientation to read it more fluently. Illya shut his mind down to Napoleon’s presence and just listened to Michea. He was talking to someone else, another American, discussing the evening’s plans. They were drinking. Illya could hear the clink of the bottles and a very slight slur in the second man’s voice. The room was small and there were no other voices, and both men were relaxed. He almost didn’t consciously take in what they were saying, just kept an awareness that allowed the words to flow through him into his fingers. He typed as they spoke, the keys pressing the dots down into the paper in the right combinations.

‘Michea’s colleague,’ he murmured in a quiet spell. ‘Sounds big. I mean, large, not fat. He’s called Rory. He’s American too.’

Then they started speaking again, and he held up a hand briefly to shush Napoleon, and carried on typing. They were discussing Sharif, talking about how low a price they thought they could talk him down to. Illya wondered briefly if they were going to arrange a double-cross, but he dismissed that thought. Thrush relied on this as a regular trafficking route. If they betrayed Sharif they would cut off their source.

‘Paper,’ he muttered to Napoleon as he reached the bottom of the sheet, and Napoleon instantly handed him a new piece. He wound it in and typed quickly to catch up.

Finally goodbyes were exchanged, the voices grew silent, and Illya leant back in his chair and rested his fingers and closed his eyes. Then he drew the last piece of paper out and slipped it onto the top of the pile, then turned the sheets over and started to run his fingers over them. He had got it all down with very few mistakes.

‘Want to read?’ he asked Napoleon, ‘or shall I just condense it?’

‘Oh, condense it,’ Napoleon told him, because he always avoided struggling through the Braille if he could.

‘Well, they didn’t specify where the warehouse is. You’ll still have to follow Sharif. But I got details about the airfield where they’re planning to ship the stuff out. There’s a pilot called Hansen who has a private jet, and he’ll be taking the stuff over to Southern Ireland, fly in during the night. Then they’ll take it from there to the US, to a recipient in Boston.’

‘Well, you have been a busy bee, haven’t you?’ Napoleon said approvingly.

‘All the names, details, they’re all in there,’ Illya said, touching his hand to the paper. ‘I’ll call it through to HQ and they can alert the Ireland offices, and Boston.’

‘Okay, I’ll take over the listening again,’ Napoleon told him, then poked him in the thigh. ‘Come on, shift.’

Illya grinned. ‘I think my behind is welded to the chair,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you want to listen? You could call in if you want to and I’ll carry on here.’

‘No, listening gets sloppy after too long. You need a break,’ Napoleon said firmly. He patted his shoulder. ‘Go on, move. Call it in. Let me have a go.’

So Illya grunted and grabbed the sheaf of paper and moved over to the sofa. He opened his watch and felt the time. Almost nine. So back in New York it would be – he subtracted the hours and worked out that Sarah should be awake and in the office, so he opened a channel and requested to be put through to her. He could have passed the details on to any of the U.N.C.L.E. people in the right department, but there was always that odd tone in the voice of so many of U.N.C.L.E.’s women when he spoke to them, like that air stewardess on the flight to Paris, as if internally they were saying,  _he’s such a doll. What a shame._

‘Oh, Illya, it’s wonderful to hear from you!’ Sarah’s voice replied. ‘How’s Cairo?’

‘Hot,’ Illya said economically. ‘At least compared to New York. I want you to transcribe some notes and do the background research, pass the information on to the relevant U.N.C.L.E. outlets, and copy to Mr Waverly.’

‘Of course,’ she replied instantly, and he knew that she would be already seated at her desk, typewriter ready with the correct carbon paper forms and her fingers over the keys. He smiled. It was so reassuring to have such a reliable assistant. So he put his sheaf of paper on his knee and tucked his communicator into his breast pocket so both hands were free, and relayed the information. He could hear the clack of her typewriter keys and the creak of her chair as he spoke, and he could almost smell the office with its coffee scent and the plants that trailed over the filing cabinets.

‘You have all that?’ he asked as he reached the end of the final sheet.

‘Every word, Illya,’ she promised him. ‘I’ll copy to the relevant departments and pass it on to Mr Waverly.’

‘Thank you, Sarah,’ he smiled.

‘You tell Napoleon to take care of you, won’t you?’ she asked. ‘And you take care of him.’

‘I always do,’ he promised. ‘Enjoy your day.’

And he capped the communicator and slipped it back into his pocket, and just sat there with his fingers lightly rubbing over the letters on the paper. Napoleon was utterly silent apart from the little clicks as he switched between bugs. Illya’s mind wandered, thinking about the doctor he had met in the bar. He told himself he was thinking about whether he had found out anything about Braille books in Cairo, but he wasn’t. He knew that he wasn’t. He was thinking about that man saying his case did not seem beyond hope. He couldn’t stop thinking about that.

He jerked himself to his feet and walked over towards the balcony with his hand held out before him. His fingers touched thick curtains, and he spent a moment trying to find the gap so that he could push through them and open the balcony door. Then he stood out there, shivering a little in the cooling night air, staring into the dark void. There was a small amount of light there, something that he imagined was the lights of the city blazing against the vast night. When he moved his head the light fluctuated. Off to the left, towards the pyramids and where the desert started, all was dark. Straight ahead and to the right there was that soft sheen of light.

He closed his eyes and touched a finger to his closed eyelid, wondering what his eyes really did look like. He trusted what Napoleon said, but still that wasn’t the same as seeing something. Napoleon had tried to describe it in various ways. He had spoken of white mother-of-pearl, of milkiness, an almost opaque film. That conjured images in his mind, but he didn’t know if they were accurate. He had lost the blue of his eyes but he didn’t look like a monster. He could tell that much from the way women still reacted to him. He had never rated his looks highly, but they had described him as cute before and they still did. They just wanted to mother him so much more now.

And now there was this doctor, this man who had looked into his eyes for the briefest time, and told him that there might be hope. Did he want hope? He had hoped so hard at first and he had been told three times that there was no hope. That third consultation had been enough. He had gone out from that shaking, holding onto Napoleon’s arm and shaking, because it was just too much. It was too much to get that hope up and then have it shattered each time. He had got into Napoleon’s car and drawn his knees up to his chest and sunk his head on to them, and they had sat there for a long time, Napoleon talking softly to him, Illya just sitting there, trying to take every bit of hope he had ever had and stamping on it, stamping on it so hard that it would never come up again. They had gone home and Illya had not known where to turn, what to do, and in the end Napoleon had taken him in his arms and kissed him. Illya had taken all of those vibrating and unspent emotions and channelled them into a furious need, and he had fucked Napoleon so hard, and Napoleon had let him do whatever he liked to him, whatever he liked, for as long as he liked.

Napoleon was his saviour. He thought he could come through anything as long as Napoleon would be there. But what if one day Napoleon wasn’t there any more? Then what? Then he would be a blind man living alone in New York, going every day to the empty office and typing empty facts onto blank paper. How terrible that would be. The thought made the bottom drop out of his stomach.

He turned back to the room, away from the chilly night air, and listened to where Napoleon was still sitting with the monitoring equipment.

‘Napoleon, be careful tonight,’ he said, and Napoleon said urgently, ‘Shush.’

Illya understood. His plea had been deep, heartfelt, but Napoleon was listening to the bugs, and he shouldn’t have spoken at all. He stepped back out onto the balcony and just stood there. Was it all right to have a little hope? Would it do him any harm?


	7. Chapter 7

Napoleon was ready to leave at ten to track Sharif. Illya had taken over the surveillance so that Napoleon could get ready, and he listened to him moving about the bedroom, changing his clothes, putting the greasepaint tin into his pocket with a clink, checking his gun. Illya wished he could have his own gun with him. There was something so reassuring about the feeling of it at his side, not just to protect himself but anyone else who needed it.

Napoleon came softly over to him on rubber soled shoes and Illya grinned and murmured, ‘Heard you. You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘I’m reckoning that Sharif and his cronies won’t have your bat like ears, _tovarisch_ ,’ Napoleon told him.

‘Never count on that,’ Illya said seriously, and Napoleon said, ‘I won’t.’

‘Napoleon,’ Illya said urgently, and he stood up with the earphones still on his head and took hold of Napoleon’s shoulders, slipped his hands up to his neck, raked his fingers through his hair, and kissed him thoroughly. He smelt of Brylcreem and of soap instead of aftershave, and of warm skin recently wet, and Illya wanted to devour him.

‘Wear t-shirts more often,’ he said. He loved the feeling of the thin cotton over Napoleon’s hard muscles. He loved the feeling of how the material of his jeans clung to his ass and hips. He nipped at Napoleon’s shoulder through the t-shirt and pressed his hands hard against his shoulder blades.

‘Mmm,’ Napoleon said warmly, his hands on Illya’s back, slipping down to clench on his ass, moving back up again to caress his face. ‘Hold that thought, my dear. We will resume later.’

‘I hope so,’ Illya said fervently. Napoleon smelt so good and felt so good, he didn’t want to ever let him go.

‘We _will,_ ’ Napoleon said, cupping his cheek. ‘I know you won’t be out there with me watching my back, but you’ll be here listening. We need to break this link in the chain. I won’t do anything until the Americans have gone, then I’ll bring Sharif in. That way Michea and his cronies won’t have any warning when they’re taken at the airfield in Ireland by our men. And that’s _your_ doing, Illya. We wouldn’t have known about that without your bug.’

‘I know,’ Illya said. He leant his forehead against Napoleon’s, then touched a hand to his earphone and said, ‘You’d better go. He’s in the bathroom washing or something, no doubt getting ready to go out. You don’t want to miss him.’

‘I’m gone,’ Napoleon said, and with a kiss to Illya’s forehead and a ruffle of his hair, he left the room.

Illya sat down in his chair with a thump. He smoothed the hair that Napoleon had left all over the place, then he sighed and tuned the monitor to the  _sixth_ bug. Napoleon would have objected if he had known, so Illya had slipped it into his waistband not long before he had dressed. If Napoleon found it he would know who had put it there.

He could hear Napoleon’s footsteps as he walked down the corridor, and then the sound of the elevator in motion. He visualised him standing there in his black clothes, leaning against the wall, looking suave, casual, looking perfect. Napoleon had always looked perfect. He wished he could see him now.

And then he stopped that sentimentality and turned to Sharif’s bug, and then to Michea’s. Michea’s was almost dead silent. He rubbed his lip for a moment, concentrating. There was a slight hiss. It hadn’t been destroyed; but perhaps Michea had simply changed his clothes. It was very likely that he would have changed out of his suit and into something else for this transaction. He switched back to Sharif’s bug, and there was very little activity, just the sounds of him moving around his house. When he switched to the other bugs in his house he heard the sound from different angles.

And then there was the noise of a telephone dial being turned, and Illya stiffened. He put his fingers on the brailler and noted down the numbers that he thought were being dialled by the time it took the dial to return to rest each time. He couldn’t always do that perfectly, but sometimes it worked.

Then Sharif spoke. ‘Michea. Yes, I will be there on time. I want to confirm that you will be there also. You will have the money?’

He couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the phone. Sharif moved restlessly, his shoes shuffling on the floor.

‘Yes, yes, of course I will have the merchandise. There will be just the two of you? Do you bring a truck? … Uh-huh. Yes, of course. Yes, we will manage to load it between us. There is a forklift. ... No, no security guard. … Yes, then I will see you there. … No, by foot. If the taxi driver takes me to that place at night he grows suspicious, yes? Yes, then I will see you there.’

And the phone receiver clattered back into its cradle.

Illya got out his communicator and said, ‘Open channel D. Napoleon?’

‘Illya,’ Napoleon murmured almost instantly. ‘What is it?’

‘Just a phone call,’ Illya said. ‘From Sharif to Michea, confirming the rendezvous. I think I got Michea’s number. Can’t be sure it was correct. Sharif said he’ll be going to the warehouse on foot.’

‘Well, that makes following him easier, at least,’ Napoleon murmured.

‘Yes, but he may set out sooner,’ Illya pointed out.

‘All right, _tovarisch_. I’ll hurry,’ Napoleon promised. ‘Anything else?’

Illya shook his head. ‘Only that he essentially confirmed there will only be the three of them at the warehouse – provided that both sides are telling the truth.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ Napoleon said. ‘I’d better go. Thanks, Illya.’

‘No problem,’ Illya murmured. He cut the connection then twisted the communicator again and requested a channel to New York.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly’s voice replied, ‘Or should I say good evening?’

‘Oh, er, I meant to speak to someone in Information,’ Illya said, slightly taken aback.

‘I happened to be in Information at the time, Mr Kuryakin. What did you want?’

‘I have a phone number to pass on, sir,’ Illya said, reaching out to finger the paper he had typed it on. ‘Mr Sharif used it to call his Thrush contacts.’ He passed on the number then said, ‘If it can be traced it might lead us to at least one of their bases.’

‘How did you get this phone number, Mr Kuryakin?’ Waverly asked curiously.

‘I heard the man dial. With each number it takes a different amount of time for the dial to return to rest. I can’t be certain it’s correct but it’s worth checking. If the numbers are wrong it might work to try them one to the left or the right.’

‘Very well, Mr Kuryakin, I’ll have it checked,’ Waverly said. Illya idly switched between bugs with his left hand just to check he wasn’t missing anything, then said, ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I trust Mr Solo is looking after you?’

Illya smiled. Waverly could get away with saying things that he would accept from few others of his acquaintance. For all of his affected indifference to his agents’ emotional lives, Waverly had been enormously supportive over the last two years, almost fatherly.

‘Yes, Napoleon’s looking after me very well,’ he said.

‘Good. Well, you seem to be getting on admirably. Most admirably,’ Waverly said.

Illya smiled again. ‘I’m doing what I can, sir. But I had better go. I’m monitoring the bugs.’

‘Ah, of course,’ Waverly said, and then he was gone.

Illya turned back to the bugs. He gave Michea’s bug another check, but there was still just silence. Sharif’s bug gave him sounds of footsteps, a few cars, but it was muffled by being in his wallet, and everything was overlain by a rustling sound that was probably his clothes moving as he walked. He flicked to Napoleon’s bug and heard similar sounds. Footsteps. Cars. He flicked between the two and smiled. The sounds were similar enough to assure him that Napoleon was close behind Sharif. The bugs in Sharif’s house would be useless now, so really he only needed to switch between Napoleon and Sharif. That made things more simple.

There was the sound of a large door being dragged open, the warehouse door, he assumed. He flicked to Napoleon’s bug and heard the same thing. He wondered what Napoleon would do now, how he would slip in. If he had been there he would have scouted around the building quickly, on light feet. He would have looked for a side door or a window and slipped in there, climbed up the wall if he couldn’t and got in through a skylight. He wished he were there. This was his type of job, not Napoleon’s...

He quelled the small tightening of anxiety in his chest. Napoleon knew what he was doing. He was good at his job. He just didn’t like not being there to pull him out of the fire if he needed it. For a reckless moment he wondered if he could go there, blind or not. But he wasn’t a superhero. He was just a man. He knew his limitations.

He sighed and turned back to listening. There were muffled noises from Sharif’s bug and clearer noises from Napoleon’s, but as Napoleon was apparently climbing up the outside of the warehouse, going by his suppressed grunts, he turned back to Sharif’s. He started the tape recorder going and laid his fingers on the keys of the brailler. The recording could be gone through with a fine tooth comb later, but he could relay his first impressions immediately to headquarters.

Sharif was talking with the Americans about the quantity and quality of the drugs he had. It was mostly cocaine, it seemed. The Americans were dubious over his assurances and wanted to test a random package. There was some shuffling and a quiet moment, and then the Americans seemed to agree that the stuff was good.

There was a noise from further away, and Illya held his breath.

‘Rats,’ Sharif said. ‘This place ships grain.’

It was Napoleon, Illya was sure, but the Americans seemed satisfied, at least in their audible responses.

He switched to Napoleon’s bug, and listened. There was almost no close noise at all, but he could hear the men talking not far away. Napoleon was in, and he had managed to get close to them. Now he just had to wait.

Illya continued to write up pertinent bits of information on the brailler until the conversation ended. Then there were the sounds of manual work, a fork lift truck moving, the grunts of lifting. They were loading the drugs into the Americans’ truck. A few words were exchanged, then there was the sound of a rough diesel engine, which swiftly faded away. Sharif’s footsteps moved across the floor. A door opened and closed.

Illya held his breath. He switched to Napoleon’s bug, and listened. He heard a door opening again, then Napoleon said suddenly, ‘All right, Sharif. That’s enough.’

And then there were gunshots. Two, so blastingly loud in Illya’s ears that he pulled the earphones away for a moment, swearing. Then he pressed them back on to his head, his heart clenching, and listened again. There was someone grunting in pain. It wasn’t Napoleon, he was sure. It was Sharif. It didn’t sound like Napoleon. But Napoleon was silent, and Illya’s heartbeat quickened. He half rose to his feet, but what could he do? He sat down again, fiddling with the communicator pen in his pocket. He didn’t want to call Napoleon and distract him. But after a few minutes where he could only hear the sound of Sharif’s groans and no sound from Napoleon, he pulled out the communicator and opened a channel.

‘Napoleon,’ he called. ‘Napoleon, answer me.’ He waited. He could hear Napoleon’s communicator trilling through the bug. ‘Napoleon!’ he tried again.

There was no reply from Napoleon. But then there was a shuffling noise, a grunting, and Illya listened intently. And then suddenly a rustling of clothing, and then the channel was open. The near silence continued, and Illya said, ‘Napoleon! Napoleon, answer me. Now. Come on!’

And then a voice, but it wasn’t Napoleon’s.

‘Who is this? What is this?’

It was Sharif. Illya took in a deep breath.

‘I am an agent for the U.N.C.L.E.,’ he said with a calm he did not feel.

‘I’m bleeding,’ the man said. He sounded dazed. ‘I’m bleeding to death. I’m – ’

‘What about Napoleon?’ Illya asked, his voice almost cracking. He steadied himself. ‘The man with you. Is he dead?’

‘The man – No. No, not dead. No. I think – How do you say? He is asleep. I’m bleeding...’

‘Where are you?’ Illya asked urgently. ‘Mr Sharif, where are you?’

‘Oh – I – I – ’

‘If you tell me where you are, I can get medical help to you,’ Illya said very clearly. _And to Napoleon_ , he thought. _Please, Napoleon, be all right…_

‘Warehouse,’ the man said. ‘I’m in the warehouse.’

‘But where is the – ’ Illya began furiously, almost swearing. He caught himself and said more calmly, ‘Give me the address of the warehouse.’

‘Address...’ The man seemed to be fading fast, but then he started murmuring out a street name, then he said, ‘Grain warehouse. The grain warehouse. Biggest...’

His voice trailed away. Illya cursed and shoved his communicator open in his pocket and groped out for his cane. His fingers touched it where it was leaning against the table and it clattered onto the floor. Cursing, he knelt and swept his hands over the carpet until he found it, then he made his way as fast as he could to the beds, and plucked his wallet and room key from the drawer in the night stand. He felt feverishly in Napoleon’s suitcase until he found the emergency medical kit, grabbed it, and made for the door.

One, two, three, four, five, six doors, and then the elevator. He jabbed at the button furiously, then pressed his ear against the doors, listening for the sound of the cables moving. He could hear it. He could hear it coming. It was so slow, so damn slow. But then the doors slid open and he stumbled into the space, lashing the cane out before him. It hit something and someone cried out in alarm, and he took a sudden step back.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he panted. ‘But this is an emergency. Please, hit one for me. Floor one.’

‘Mr Kuryakin? Mr Kuryakin, whatever is wrong?’

Illya snapped his face towards the man. ‘Is that Dr Bruner?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is. Mr Kuryakin – ?’

He realised the elevator was still standing motionless. ‘Please, hit one,’ he begged, fumbling for his wallet. The elevator began to move, and he sighed his relief. He opened his wallet and felt through it. The notes were in there in little Braille-marked clips, separating the different denominations. Then in the pockets there were a number of cards. He slipped his fingers over the top one and felt his name and UNCLE in Braille dots. Sarah had applied that for him so he could identify it easily. He pulled it out of his wallet and held it out.

‘Dr Bruner, I am an agent for the U.N.C.L.E.. I need your help.’

‘The U.N.C.L.E.?’ the man asked confusedly. ‘But what is this?’

Illya hissed in annoyance. ‘Dr Bruner, it is a law enforcement agency. My partner, Mr Solo, is lying injured somewhere out there, and I must get to him.  _Please_ .’

There was a silence that seemed to last forever, then Dr Bruner said, ‘I – have heard of the organisation, of course. It merely takes me by surprise that – ’

‘That a blind man is an U.N.C.L.E. agent?’ Illya’s chuckle was icy. ‘Doctor, I had acid thrown into my face on a mission two years ago. I was an active agent up until that point. I am here only to help with surveillance and with the grace of my superior. Now, _please_.’

The elevator doors slipped open and Illya made for them.

‘Now, wait a moment, take my arm,’ the doctor said quickly, coming to his side. Illya took it impatiently, but he didn’t want to be guided. He wanted to just _go_. ‘Mr Kuryakin, if your partner is injured surely we must call an ambulance?’

Illya almost groaned. How  _hard_ it was to explain to people outside of the profession.

‘This is a covert assignment, doctor. I just need you to help me get a cab.’

‘And then you will find him, alone?’ But the doctor was moving across the lobby now, and for that Illya was grateful. ‘Mr Kuryakin, forgive me, but you are blind. I understand how little sight you must have. Light perception. No more. What will you do when you get there?’

‘I – ’ He didn’t know. What could he do? He could have screamed with frustration. More than anything else in the world right now, he needed to see.

‘I will come with you,’ Dr Bruner said firmly. ‘Now, here is the counter of the reception,’ he said as Illya’s cane clattered into something solid. A bell dinged, and then Dr Bruner said, ‘We need a cab, immediately. This is a medical emergency.’

The time it took for the cab to get there felt like years, but it must in actuality have been very quick. Then Illya found himself in the back of the vehicle with Dr Bruner beside him, giving his vague address to a bemused driver. It must have worked somehow, though, because soon the cab was speeding through the streets and Illya realised he was pressing his foot onto the floor as if he were stamping on the gas.

‘I think we’re nearing the area, Mr Kuryakin,’ Dr Bruner said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find your friend.’

‘I hope so,’ Illya said quietly. Visions of Napoleon dead on the floor spun through his mind. He thought of reaching out and touching his face and finding it still and cooling, no breath coming from between his lips. That couldn’t happen. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

The cab stopped, and he jerked forward, almost hitting the seat in front.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I think we’re here,’ the doctor said, then he asked, ‘There’s a grain warehouse. Which one is it?’

The cab driver replied, but Illya was already getting out of the cab. He stood there with his palm hard on the cool metal of the door, then suddenly remembered he needed to pay the driver. He leant back in and said, ‘Please, will you wait? I’ll pay you very well.’

There was a slight hesitation, so Illya pulled out his wallet and fumbled for a note. He didn’t really care which kind it was. He held it out to the driver and said, ‘Take this. And then you  _wait._ All right?’ Then he said, ‘Dr Bruner, please – ’

The doctor came to him quickly and Illya took his arm. This was so frustrating. He wanted to be running, searching, getting to Napoleon as fast as he could. He was trying to hold his cane and the medical kit in the same hand, and he shook his head and said, ‘Look, can you carry this?’

‘Of course,’ the doctor said, taking the kit. ‘The grain warehouse is right here.’ He sounded ridiculously calm.

Illya fought for his own calm. ‘A door?’ he asked. Then he said, ‘Take care, Dr Bruner. I don’t believe there are still hostiles inside, but take great care. If I tell you to run or hide, do it, without question.’

‘And you?’ the doctor asked, sounding almost amused.

‘I am going to find my partner,’ Illya said.

‘Mr Kuryakin – ’

‘I _know_ I am blind,’ Illya hissed, preempting his objection. ‘I have never been more aware of that. Now, the door.’

‘It is this way,’ the doctor said, starting to walk at a swift pace. Illya followed him, listening intently to the sounds around him, trying not to make too much noise with the cane on this uncertain ground. It was quiet here. The scant evening traffic in the city was almost inaudible. There was just the faint hiss of a slight wind, and the occasional creak or crack of something warm cooling down in the night air.

‘The door,’ the doctor said. ‘The hinge is on the left.’

Illya reached forward with the cane to feel the gap and the frame, and followed the doctor through.

‘Do you see anything?’ Illya asked softly.

‘It’s rather dark...’

Illya snorted in frustration. ‘Is there a light on anywhere?’ he asked, moving his head back and forth, trying to see if there were a change in the light levels anywhere.’

‘I think – Yes, I think towards the back of the building.’

The place smelt of dust and wheat and warmth, and their footsteps echoed on the floor. It was a wide, high space and it felt very empty, but every now and then Illya could feel that they had walked past something that was close to them. Perhaps stacks of boxes or sacks. The dusty scent of the place made Illya’s nose itch.

‘I think it’s an office, Mr Kuryakin,’ the doctor said, slowing his pace. He was starting to sound nervous now.

‘Approach with caution,’ Illya warned him. He wanted to run, but he knew better. ‘How close are we?’

‘Only about twenty metres. Come. Come on. The door is open.’

And he moved a little faster, and then he was at the door, and Illya could smell so much blood. God, how he needed to see.

‘Napoleon?’ he asked, but there was silence.

‘There’s another man,’ Bruner said. ‘Egyptian. He – ’ There was a pause as the doctor moved away from his arm, then he said, ‘I’m afraid he’s dead.’

Illya’s heart lurched at that imprecise statement. He wanted to reach up and rip this opacity from his eyes. ‘Napoleon?’ he asked.

‘The Egyptian is dead. Your Mr Solo – ’ Silence again, and the doctor moved, and his voice came from low down. ‘He’s alive,’ Bruner said. ‘Not badly injured.’

Illya almost dropped to his knees in his relief. He stepped carefully towards Bruner’s voice and got down on the floor and felt out, and Bruner caught his hand and guided it to Napoleon’s chest. Illya didn’t prevaricate. He just pushed his hand up under the cotton t-shirt and pressed his hand against Napoleon’s chest. He could feel his heartbeat slow and steady against his palm. The feeling of that warm skin, the thin layer of muscled flesh over ribs, the beating heart beneath, was beautiful to him.

‘It looks like the bullet grazed the side of his head,’ the doctor said. ‘He’s unconscious but there’s not too much blood.’

Illya heard him opening the medical kit.

‘Now, the Egyptian fellow – that was a gut shot. Nasty way to die, poor man.’

Illya breathed out a long, slow breath. Thank god Sharif had managed to tell him where he was before he died. He actually felt sorry for the man. He would always be grateful to him for that final act. He kept his hand on Napoleon’s chest and kept feeling his heartbeat, and smelt the sharp scent of iodine in the air. He reached out with his other hand to touch Napoleon’s face, holding his fingers in front of his mouth briefly to feel the slow, light puff of his breath and then just laying his palm on his cheek.

‘Napoleon,’ he said sharply. ‘Napoleon!’

And then he felt Napoleon stir, and joy jumped in him. Illya patted lightly at his cheek.

‘Napoleon,’ he said again. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘Pupils are equal and reactive,’ Dr Bruner muttered.

Then Napoleon drew in a sharp breath and said, ‘Illya? What the devil are you doing here? Doctor – Dr Bruner? Illya, what – ?’

Illya breathed out a long breath, and smiled. ‘You need to stop sleeping on the job,’ he growled. ‘You can’t always expect me to come and wake you up.’

‘Well, if I’m sleeping beauty, does that make you the handsome prince?’ Napoleon asked. His voice was a little shaky but he was trying to sound light-hearted, and Illya appreciated that. ‘Wasn’t it Rapunzel where the prince wandered blind in the desert? You have your fairy tales mixed up again, uncultured Russian.’ He started trying to sit up, and winced.

‘I don’t know what it makes me, but it makes you a very bad U.N.C.L.E. agent,’ Illya told him fiercely. ‘Can you get up?’

‘Now, really – ’ Bruner began, but Napoleon started to try to sit then said, ‘It would be easier, Illya, if you weren’t pinning me down.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said, and he removed his hand from Napoleon’s chest. ‘Napoleon, Sharif is dead, from your shot, I assume. It would be prudent to get out of here before the police arrive, because I don’t think either of us want to spend time in a Cairo police cell waiting for Mr Waverly to pull strings and cut red tape. Are there any papers you need to take?’

‘Papers?’ Napoleon still sounded half dazed. ‘Er – no, I don’t think – I don’t think there are papers. Help me up, Illya.’ 

Illya held out a strong hand and helped Napoleon to sit.

‘Let me – let me have a look,’ Napoleon murmured. ‘Sharif might have something. Ah, yes.’

And Illya heard Napoleon patting at the body, and the rustle of paper, then he stood with a grunt, saying, ‘Be careful where you step, all right,  _tovarisch_ ? There’s a nice pool of blood around poor old Sharif. Dr Bruner, thank you for coming to my rescue. No, I can walk. You help Illya, please. I really don’t want him walking in that blood. That’s the kind of trail a local detective would love.’

‘But – the dead man,’ the doctor began. ‘Surely we can’t – ’

‘We can, and we are,’ Illya told him firmly. ‘Let’s hope that taxi’s still there. Don’t worry, Dr Bruner. We will call our superior and he will make sure that everything is straightened out with the local police force. But it would be much better for all of us if we weren’t caught at the scene. People leap to terrible conclusions, and sometimes it takes time for bureaucracy to work. Please, let me have your arm.’


	8. Chapter 8

The taxi was still there outside the warehouse. Illya had almost expected it to be gone. On the way back to the hotel Napoleon opened up a channel to the local U.N.C.L.E. offices and reported everything that had happened, then called Waverly and repeated it all. Then he sank against Illya’s side and groaned and said, ‘I think I need to start having early nights.’

‘I think you need to stop being shot and needing the cavalry to come to your rescue,’ Illya said grimly. ‘You need a partner, Napoleon.’

‘I _have_ a partner,’ Napoleon said, and Illya replied softly, ‘A partner who can see.’

Illya didn’t want to have this conversation in the back of a taxi with a stranger driving and Dr Bruner in the front passenger seat.

‘We will talk about this later,’ he said. ‘Now, you are sure that you don’t need to go to the hospital?’

‘I would certainly recommend – ’ Dr Bruner began, but Napoleon cut over him, ‘I’m fine. I’ve been all taped up by a real doctor, Illya.’

‘Mr Solo, really, I am an ophthalmologist, not a general – ’ Bruner began, but Napoleon interrupted again.

‘After all, the side of my head is pretty close to my eyes. Ah, Illya, we’re home,’ he said as the car rolled to a halt, and Illya felt for his wallet. ‘No, let me,’ Napoleon said quickly, and Illya heard the rustle of notes and the driver’s grateful response.

He was glad when they were out of the taxi and walking up into the hotel lobby. He had felt vulnerable all the way back. He wasn’t sure if he were guiding Napoleon or Napoleon were guiding him, but Dr Bruner had his hand lightly on Illya’s cane arm and steered him a little as they made for the elevator.

‘Dr Bruner, I can’t express my gratitude enough for your help this evening,’ Illya said. ‘You won’t suffer any repercussions, of course. U.N.C.L.E. will clear everything with the local authorities.’

‘I was glad to be able to help,’ the man said warmly. ‘Now, you must get your partner up to your room and to bed. If he won’t go to the hospital the least he can do is rest. Monitor him for nausea or disorientation.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Illya said, trying not to sound impatient. ‘We both have plenty of experience with concussion.’

He just wanted to be back in their room. But then Bruner excused himself by saying he was going to get himself a final drink before the bar closed, and he and Napoleon were alone in the elevator, and Illya breathed out a long breath, then asked, ‘Are you really all right, Napoleon?’

He could hear Napoleon’s smile in his voice. ‘I’m really all right. You brought me a bone fide doctor, Illya. You couldn’t do better than that.’

‘I could have called an ambulance,’ Illya muttered.

‘No, you couldn’t,’ Napoleon said softly. ‘You know that. We were to work undercover as far as possible, and you stuck to that. Come on,’ he said as the doors slid open. ‘Now, who’s leading, huh?’

‘If we’re dancing, that’s Cinderella, isn’t it?’ Illya extended his cane with a smile. ‘I’ll lead. You hold on to me.’

He wondered as he moved up the corridor with his arm around Napoleon’s back whether the residents of the rooms on his right minded the clack of his cane against their doors at this time of night, but nobody came out to remonstrate. When they got through their own door Napoleon started to steer, and Illya found himself tumbling onto one of the twin beds with his arm still around Napoleon. His cane clattered onto the floor, and he came to a rest with a grunt, his body against Napoleon’s body, head by his head. He slipped his fingers to the side of Napoleon’s head then apologised as he winced.

‘I wish I could see it,’ Illya said, moving his fingers ever so lightly over the adhesive bandage the doctor had applied.

‘I’ve been checked, Illya,’ Napoleon said, and before Illya could say anything more he felt Napoleon’s lips against his, one of his hands raking through his hair. Illya sighed and gave in to the feeling for a moment, but then he touched his lips to the side of Napoleon’s head, feeling the heat in his flesh close to that bandage.

‘It must hurt,’ he said. ‘Do you need some aspirin?’

‘ _I’ll_ get the aspirin when I want some,’ Napoleon assured him. ‘At least I can read the label.’

Illya pressed a kiss onto his forehead, another on his cheek. ‘Sarah put Braille labels on the contents of the medical kit before we left,’ he murmured. ‘She had an idea that you might get yourself into trouble.’

‘Ah, well Sarah is a very clever girl,’ Napoleon replied, but his words were distorted because he had taken one of Illya’s hands and was kissing each finger in turn. ‘But we don’t need Sarah in bed with us, do we, Illya?’

‘Oh, Sarah is _definitely_ not in bed with us,’ Illya said. He slipped his hands over the supple leather of Napoleon’s shoulder holster and unbuckled the straps. He ran his hands over the thin cotton of Napoleon’s top, feeling the hard peaks of his nipples under the fabric, then he slipped his hands underneath and felt the heat of his skin, the slight amount of hair, the regular thud of his heart. He pushed the top up and Napoleon struggled out of it and the holster together, and Illya sank his face back down to the naked chest, smelling the musky scent of his underarms, brushing his fingers through the hair there, touching Napoleon’s sides and the lines of his ribs and the hollow of his navel.

‘Oh, god, Napoleon,’ he said. He could have devoured him alive. He felt so good, he smelt so good. He moved a hand up to find Napoleon’s face, his lips, and then kissed him hard, so hard, slipping his tongue into Napoleon’s mouth and tasting him. He could smell the blood from his head wound and the faintest remnants of the aftershave that Napoleon had washed off before leaving for tonight’s mission. He touched his finger over the bump of the mole on his cheek, tickled along the contours of his ear, brushed across his hair, and kissed him again.

‘Illya, you are far too clothed,’ Napoleon said breathlessly.

So Illya sat back and made swift work of stripping off every inch of clothing. He dropped it haphazardly on the floor and then came back to the bed, and when he touched Napoleon, Napoleon was naked too. Illya laid the length of his body against the length of Napoleon’s, stroking his hands feverishly over every contour he could find, until he brushed against the hard length of his cock that was standing up proudly, waiting for him. He touched his mouth to the heat of it, kissing it as if it were the fount of all that was good, and Napoleon arched and gasped and reached out to caress Illya’s back, his firm behind, his sides.

‘You are beautiful, Napoleon,’ Illya murmured. ‘You are so beautiful.’

He smelt of the leather of the holster, of gun oil, of sweat and soap. He was just perfect. He didn’t have enough hands to take him in, and he ached to be able to see him lying there on that bed. He didn’t even know what colour the bedclothes were, whether they complemented the beautiful tone of his skin, his hair, his brown eyes. He moved his hands more, searching out every inch of Napoleon, kissing him and feeling him with his lips as well as his hands, as well as the length of his body. God, he wanted to be all around him and in him and over him. He wanted to be part of him.

‘Oil,’ he said, and Napoleon laughed.

‘Impatient Russian,’ he said, and then Napoleon’s hand moved down and his fingers curled around Illya’s cock, and he gasped at that sudden touch.

‘Oil,’ he said again. ‘ _Now_ , Napoleon.’

So Napoleon obeyed, and he pressed a small bottle into Illya’s hand, and Illya let the stuff trickle over his hands before shoving Napoleon’s legs apart and preparing him with urgent, tender care. He needed Napoleon so badly, and he sank into him, all the way, until his pelvis was hard against Napoleon’s muscular ass and he was buried all the way inside that tight, hot channel. And Napoleon groaned out, ‘God, Illya,’ and Illya made love to him with long, deep, powerful thrusts, Napoleon’s legs flung up over his shoulders and Illya’s arm wrapped around them and his other hand smooth with oil and tight around Napoleon’s hot and yearning cock.

He wanted to see him. He closed his eyes and pretended he could see him, because he had never seen Napoleon like this, never in his life, not there under him, open for him, grunting out his pleasure each time Illya entered him, almost whimpering in need each time he withdrew. And Illya came with a cry, buried deep in the heat of Napoleon’s body, feeling the jerking of Napoleon’s cock in his hand, hearing Napoleon’s own cry of orgasm.

He knelt there, deep in Napoleon, sweat slick between the backs of Napoleon’s legs and his own chest, his heart pounding. He turned his head and kissed Napoleon’s knee where it lay over his shoulder, and then let his legs down and slumped down to lie alongside him, flinging an arm over Napoleon’s chest. Napoleon was breathing hard, and his chest was sticky with his come. When Illya touched his lips to Napoleon’s cheek he tasted the salt of sweat.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you, Napoleon.’

And Napoleon turned his head and kissed him tenderly on the lips, and stroked the hair back from his temple and said, ‘Oh, Illya, I love you too, so much. You know I do.’

‘I know,’ Illya murmured. ‘I know.’

He rested his head on Napoleon’s shoulder and lay there, just listening to his breathing, listening to the beat of his heart. He felt as if he hadn’t a bone in his body. The room was warm and still and all that existed in the world was Napoleon.

‘You know, I don’t think this was what the doctor had in mind when he told me to rest,’ Napoleon commented with a laugh.

‘Oh,’ Illya said dreamily. He was starting to feel sleepy. ‘Well, are you nauseous?’ he asked. ‘Are you disoriented?’

‘Nauseous, no,’ Napoleon said. ‘But really, Illya, I can’t possibly answer the second question after you’ve just done that to me. I hardly even know what country I’m in.’

‘You are in Egypt,’ Illya said helpfully, kissing him. ‘In Cairo. I think you’re facing west.’

‘Ah. Well, now I know where I am, at least.’

His arm came to lie over Illya’s back, heavy and warm and strong. Illya snuggled closer. This was perfect. It was just perfect. But he wished he could see Napoleon’s face, his post-coital flush, the sparkle in his eyes. Sadness welled up so strongly that he had to swallow.

‘Napoleon, what if he’s right about my eyes?’ he asked very quietly. ‘What if something _can_ be done?’

‘Then we do it, if that’s what you want,’ Napoleon said instantly. ‘Whatever it takes, we do it.’

‘Sometimes – ’ and Illya felt so strange and confused expressing this thought, a thought which should be anathema, he thought, to any sane man ‘ – well, I almost feel like I don’t need to see. Sometimes I feel absolutely content as I am, as we are. I have adapted. I do well.’

And he stopped, feeling as though he had said something terrible, something he never should have said aloud.

‘You do _so_ well,’ Napoleon told him, caressing the side of his face. ‘You do amazingly.’

‘Yes, I’m the very image of the cheerful, well-adjusted blind man,’ Illya said very dryly.

‘But – ’ Napoleon said.

‘But,’ Illya echoed.

And there was the but. He had got used to his mundane life, even if he didn’t always like it. Now everything had been shaken up again. He had been reminded of what he used to do, of what he couldn’t do now. He remembered sitting in that hotel room in Paris monitoring the Van Schreetens’ conversations, Napoleon coming in, meeting his eyes with a sparkle in his own, with that beautiful grin. Remembered Napoleon tossing a baguette over to him and him catching it with thoughtless ease. Oh god, he remembered then that tussle they had staged on the balcony outside the Van Schreetens’ room, how he had arched back against Napoleon and Napoleon had held him with an iron gentleness. That performance they had put on for that Dutchman… They had laughed about it so hard afterwards, walking back through the Paris streets, Napoleon’s arm around his shoulders, and the city had glittered in the evening lights. How long had it been since they had shared something like that? They had shared so many other things since, but they had lost that beautiful edge of knowing that they walked a tightrope of danger and could fall at any time.

He sighed, stroking his fingertips over Napoleon’s chest, feeling the light hairs there, feeling his heartbeat. Napoleon felt so good. He had touched him so much since they had come together that he thought he would be able to reproduce him in clay, every contour. And he had never seen him, not like this. He had seen Napoleon naked many times, but never since their relationship had taken this incredible, intimate turn. He wished he could see him now. He really did.

‘These days in Cairo, they are a taste of what I used to have,’ he said slowly. ‘If I could get that back...’

‘You’re worried about building up false hopes,’ Napoleon guessed.

Illya was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Yes. I spent so much energy on hope, and it got me nowhere. I learnt that to be happy I must let go of such foolish ideas. I must learn to live as a blind man, and to be happy. And I  _have_ been happy. But if this man is right, if he can give me my sight, if I can be back in the field, Napoleon, with you...’ He groaned, and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘You should have had a partner today who could help you.’

‘I _did_ ,’ Napoleon reminded him. ‘That’s why I’m here now.’

Illya shook his head impatiently. It was so frustrating sometimes when people, even Napoleon, tried to convince him that he was just as capable as he had been when he had his sight. He knew he wasn’t. He was more capable than he had ever believed he would be, but he knew his limitations.

‘You _know_ what I mean, Napoleon. That was almost pure luck. Running into Dr Bruner in the elevator, his deciding to come along. If I’d been alone I wouldn’t have been able to – Well, I probably wouldn’t have found you, wouldn’t have been able to assess your injuries. I would have been useless.’

‘No,’ Napoleon said. ‘Never useless, Illya. If you hadn’t run into Dr Bruner you would have found someone to help. The cab driver, or someone on the street, or you would have called the local U.N.C.L.E. outlet and they would have sent help. You would have done _something_.’

Napoleon started to sit up, and Illya did too, feeling the cooling and sticky come that was smeared between their bodies. It had been sweet and erotic in the post-coital flush, but now he just felt grubby.

‘Napoleon, do you feel up to a bath?’ he asked, touching his fingertips lightly to his chest.

Napoleon chuckled. ‘I think I  _need_ one, regardless. Stay there, honey. I’ll go run it. It’s a big tub. We’ll both fit in.’

  


((O))

  


It was deliciously warm in the bathtub, and Illya leant against the smoothness of the enamel with Napoleon lolling back against his chest. His legs were splayed either side of Napoleon’s hips, and he loved the delicious heavy weight of Napoleon against him, the feeling of his legs against Illya’s own legs. He reached around Napoleon’s body with his arms, sudding a sponge in slow whorls over his chest. Napoleon was tired. He could feel it in every inch of him. No doubt the head wound hurt like hell, although he had made sure that his partner had taken painkillers before they got into the bath. Napoleon was still and drowsy against him, and every now and then Illya spoke to him to make sure he was just tired, not succumbing to concussion, but mostly he just sat and thought.

He had fought so hard against his blindness in the early days, as if fighting against it would make it go away. He had raged and wept. There had been a renting of clothes and a gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions, as Napoleon was fond of reminding him at times. He sat in the bath now remembering when he had taken a bath a few days after returning home from his stay in the U.N.C.L.E. infirmary. He had noticed how his whole body smelt of the infirmary. He smelt of antiseptic, and of the cream that he had to rub into the burns on his face to try to heal them without scarring. He had been afraid then that he would be left a monster as well as blind. He had seen the damage that acid could do, and in those early days he had touched the rough burns on his face and felt a strange melange of emotions. It wasn’t really fear. He was too caught up with the enormity of his sight loss to give his facial burns the emotional attention he would have otherwise. But he had felt so broken. He had felt as if he were sinking slowly to the bottom of a dark, deep bog, a quiet, heavy place where it would take more strength than he had to even lift an arm. He was trapped in a well of darkness, blind, disfigured, ruined.

And he had lain there in the hot water, eyes closed, eyes that were no longer bandaged but were just as useless to him. When he opened his eyes he could have been looking through bandages still, because there was just a dim white blur where previously he had been able to see at distance with perfect clarity. He had relied on reading glasses for a long time, but he wouldn’t be reading anything again.

Then there was a soft tap on the door and Napoleon had asked, ‘May I come in?’ and Illya had grunted, ‘Yeah,’ because he felt tired, too tired to refuse, too tired to say anything else. So Napoleon had come in and Illya heard him sit on the closed toilet, which seemed to be in a different place to where he had expected. For a moment that had startled him because he had forgotten where he was, thought he was in his own apartment still instead of lying in Napoleon’s bath, in Napoleon’s bathroom. He had agreed to Napoleon’s plan early in the first week without really thinking about it.  _Don’t worry, Illya. I’ll take care of you. Hey, why don’t you move in with me, huh? I can help you until you’re back on your feet, and we’ll both save on rent._ Napoleon had wheedled at him and he hadn’t needed to, because Illya had just wearily said,  _All right, Napoleon. Anything. You see to it._ He hadn’t been able to think of anything, lying there in an infirmary bed, but the fact that he was blind and always would be, and his life was ended.

He had forgotten that he was lying in Napoleon’s bath because he couldn’t see, and his thoughts were so far away, so far down in that dark hole. Then Napoleon came in and sat down and said, ‘I forgot you might have trouble with the bottles in here. I didn’t want you to pick up bubble bath instead of shampoo or something.’

‘Oh,’ Illya had said listlessly, not moving, not really listening. Then Napoleon said, ‘You’re tired, I know. Look, Illya, let me help you.’

So Illya had asked, ‘Help me?’ and fingered over the scabs under his right eye and leant his head back, and then Napoleon had begun washing him, softly and gently, and Illya hadn’t argued. It had just felt nice lying there, feeling the cloth moving over his body, over his arms and legs. Napoleon had been so quiet and soft in his movements. At the end Napoleon had said, ‘Tip your head back,’ and he had shielded Illya’s face with his hand and poured water through his hair and massaged shampoo in with strong fingers, then he washed it all out and asked, ‘Better?’

It  _had_ felt better. He had been neglecting himself over that past week, especially since he hadn’t been able to wash his hair while the bandages were on, and he hadn’t let the nurses bathe him and hadn’t bothered himself. He had been able to muster a wan smile and thank Napoleon, but he had felt so tired and so miserable that even Napoleon’s tender care had failed to lift him up.

Here, now, in this big bath in Cairo, Illya sighed, and Napoleon asked him, ‘What’s going through your mind, Illya? You’re miles away.’

Illya realised he was just holding a soapy sponge against Napoleon’s chest and sitting there in the water, lost in memories.

‘I must be tired,’ he murmured. ‘How’s the head? I should get you to bed.’

‘Separate beds again,’ Napoleon said with a sigh. ‘Makes me long for a tiny place with a double and bed bugs.’

He sloshed in the water and groaned a little and said, ‘Wait there, Illya. I’ll get your robe.’

‘No, Napoleon, you’re injured,’ Illya protested, but he did so weakly.

‘I’m on top of you. Let me get your robe.’

So Illya lay there as Napoleon got out, and by the time he had climbed out of the tub himself Napoleon had the thick bathrobe ready to wrap around him, and he took Napoleon’s arm and followed him out of the room, inhaling the scent of wet skin and hair and thinking how soft Napoleon would feel now.

‘Now, you sit there for a minute,’ Napoleon said, guiding Illya to the deep armchair that sat in the corner of the room, and Illya sat, but he asked, ‘What are you doing, Napoleon? You should lie down and rest.’

‘A minute, _mon cher_ ,’ Napoleon said, and Illya heard him grunting and the sound of pushing, and he said impatiently, ‘What are you _doing_?’ because much as Napoleon loved to titillate him, it was so frustrating not being able to just see.

‘I am making us a double bed, my love,’ Napoleon said, and he took Illya by the elbow and guided him back to the bed, and he found that Napoleon had pushed both the beds together into one.

‘There’ll be a seam,’ Illya said prosaically.

‘Trust you,’ Napoleon muttered, but he pulled Illya close and Illya snuggled in against his lover’s body and touched the side of his head lightly to check the dressing and said, ‘You should sleep now, _lyubimy._ Rest your head. I’m sure Waverly will want you to call in fifteen different kinds of reports in the morning.’


	9. Chapter 9

He woke with his arm flung over Napoleon’s chest and his legs tangled over Napoleon’s legs, and the warm scent of him rich in his nostrils. He wondered briefly what time it was. The curtains were closed and the light was dim, but it definitely wasn’t dark. He had left his watch on the nightstand and he didn’t even know where the nightstand was since Napoleon had rearranged the furniture, and besides, Napoleon was asleep, and he didn’t want to move and wake him because lying here like this listening to his lover’s slow, easy breathing was so beautiful. It was warm in the room and he was sure that it couldn’t be terribly early. Perhaps they had missed breakfast. But never mind. They would order it to the room, and it would be wonderful.

He inched his arm up so his fingers were on Napoleon’s neck, just touching where his pulse fluttered under his skin. His heart rate was good, a slow, steady beat indicative of natural sleep. His breathing was easy. He didn’t sound as if he were in pain. He felt a little easier then. Napoleon didn’t seem to be suffering from the head wound. Then Napoleon made a little noise, which became a yawn, and Illya felt him stretching under his arm. His lover felt like such a powerful creature when he moved like that, every muscle hardening and then relaxing again. He brought his fingertips to Napoleon’s face and traced them over his cheekbones and his lips. Oh, he felt so beautiful. He remembered how those lips had used to look, like an opening rose, and the expressions he had managed in his chocolate eyes. How he had loved Napoleon’s eyes.

‘Are you awake?’ he asked softly.

‘Mmmhmm, just about,’ Napoleon replied, and he kissed Illya’s fingers as they moved over his lips.

‘You know what time it is?’

‘Er...’ And Napoleon twisted his head and Illya’s fingers moved with it, then he said, ‘Christ, it’s almost eleven, Illya.’

Illya smiled sleepily. ‘Well, I think it’s safe to say we missed breakfast. How’s the head?’

‘Sore,’ Napoleon said, ‘but it’s all right. I’ve had worse.’

‘An inch to the left and you never would have had worse again,’ Illya mused.

Napoleon turned a little and deposited a kiss on Illya’s temple. ‘That’s the famous Solo luck,’ he said. ‘Never question it. I’m here this morning, and that’s enough.’

Illya ran his hand down over Napoleon’s body. It was hot under the blankets. He felt so soft and strong and alive.

‘What’ll we do about breakfast?’ he asked, bringing his hand back up to Napoleon’s face and laying it on his cheek. He felt Napoleon’s smile.

‘I know what  _ I _ want for breakfast,’ his partner said.

Illya kissed his shoulder. ‘You are insatiable.’

‘Well, Illya, have you seen the temptation?’

‘Not recently,’ Illya said, and Napoleon growled at him and rolled over and pinned him down so he could kiss him thoroughly.

They spent an hour lying in their tangle of blankets, and Napoleon took the sweet smelling oil and massaged it gently into the dusky hole between Illya’s buttocks and made love to him softly, his body over Illya’s, Illya’s legs splayed either side of him. Afterwards he rested himself down over Illya’s chest and kissed him and stroked his face and said, ‘That was breakfast. Now, how about a shower, and then we can order brunch?’

A communicator warbled, and Illya sighed.

‘I don’t even know where half the bedroom furniture is, so you better get that,’ he commented.

Napoleon groaned and rolled off his lover and asked, ‘Do you think we should tell Waverly just what we were doing when he called?’

‘I’d rather not be responsible for him having a heart attack,’ Illya commented dryly.

So Napoleon found the communicator and said lightly, ‘Solo here. Good morning, New York.’

‘Afternoon in Cairo, I should say,’ Waverly’s rather disgruntled voice replied. ‘Mr Solo, did it occur to you at any point this morning to check in?’

‘Er,’ Napoleon faltered, then he said gamely, ‘Well, with the time difference, sir, I didn’t want to call in too early. I don’t like to bother the night staff.’

Waverly made a tutting sound, and Illya grinned. He wondered, not for the first time, if the Old Man ever slept.

‘I trust the head wound isn’t too bad, Mr Solo, and that Mr Kuryakin is looking after you?’

‘It’s barely a scratch, sir,’ Napoleon said, and Illya wondered how true that was. It had been a blow hard enough to send him into unconsciousness.

‘Well, that’s good. That’s good. Because I want you on the evening flight.’

‘Back home, sir?’ Napoleon asked, and the disappointment that Illya felt was echoed in his voice.

‘No, indeed, Mr Solo. I want you to go to Ireland and sort out this nest of intrigue that’s allowing Thrush to smuggle large quantities of drugs into and out of the country.’

Napoleon sighed, and reached out to lay a hand over Illya’s.

‘And me, sir?’ Illya asked rather tentatively.

‘Well...’ Waverly said. ‘Mr Kuryakin, while I’m sure you’re capable of making your way home alone with the help of airport staff, I think I’d rather have you under your partner’s watchful eye, considering the price that Thrush may have on your head. Tag along with Mr Solo, please. But please, Mr Kuryakin, keep your head down. U.N.C.L.E. invested a great deal of money in your training, you know.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Illya said. He wanted to argue that he would be quite capable of getting home alone, and that Thrush were unlikely to target him now he was blind, but he couldn’t be sure of that, and anyway, he wasn’t going to argue with something that would keep him in the field for a little longer.

‘And, Mr Solo, please find a hotel room in Ireland that’s rather less expensive than your current exorbitant location.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Napoleon said.

He closed the communicator and turned to Illya, brushing a hand down his cheek.

‘Well, it could be worse. A little Irish pub with rooms upstairs. A quaint brass framed double bed, and you, and me – ’

‘And Thrush,’ Illya appended.

‘Not in our room.’

Illya grunted. ‘I certainly hope not, but you never can tell. I don’t think we’re going to see the pyramids this trip, though, Napoleon.’

‘Ah, well,’ Napoleon sighed. ‘I didn’t really expect to. We can leave that to a leisure trip. But there is one thing you’re going to see today.’

‘Huh?’

‘Your Dr Bruner. He said he’d look your eyes over, and he’s going to do that before we leave, okay?’

Illya smiled a rather pale smile. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘As soon as we’ve had breakfast.’

He felt Napoleon becoming very serious. ‘Illya. I know you’ve been burned by your previous experiences, but really, I think this man is worth listening to. I had one of the girls at HQ dig into his history. He’s at the top of his game.’

Illya closed his eyes and sighed. There was a roiling ball of emotion in his chest. He had worked  _ so _ hard at moving on from false hope to acceptance. But he knew Napoleon was right. He would have to take this chance.

‘All right, Napoleon,’ he said. ‘I will see Dr Bruner. But only after we have breakfast.’

  


((O))

  


‘You understand, Mr Kuryakin, that even if the examination is favourable, I can guarantee nothing,’ Dr Bruner said.

‘Yes, of course,’ Illya said uncomfortably.

He was sitting on the sofa in Bruner’s suite, a place that felt and smelt so much like their own that it was almost as if he hadn’t left his room. The lingering scent of aftershave was different, though, and there were other small differences. He had learnt well how to read rooms.

There was a knock on the door, and Bruner said, ‘Ah, that will be Morell. There are two men in the world, Mr Kuryakin, who are at the top of this speciality. I am the foremost authority. Dr Morell is just a little way behind. As luck would have it, I have managed to get together the equipment I need to give you a proper examination, from samples brought by the conference participants.’

Illya rose as Bruner let the man in, and Napoleon murmured in his ear, ‘I’ve seen him down in the restaurant. Talks a lot with Bruner.’

‘Now, Mr Kuryakin,’ Bruner said. ‘This is Raphael Morell. Raphael, Illya Kuryakin, the man I was telling you about over breakfast. He has been told that there’s no hope of a corneal transplant, but I’m not so sure.’

Illya held out his hand awkwardly, and a rather cold hand clasped around his with a strong grip.

‘Pleased to meet you, Kuryakin,’ the man said. He was rather taller than Illya and had an accent that sounded like a confusion of Spanish and something Illya couldn’t place.

‘Now, if you’ll sit back down, Mr Kuryakin, we’ll take a look. You may find the light very bright and a little uncomfortable, but it’s necessary to properly see the damage to your eyes.’

So Illya sat there very still and did as the doctor directed him and listened to the man muttering to his colleague. He heard words that he had heard before in those previous examinations and memories welled up of those awful consultations when he had walked in clinging to Napoleon’s arm and sat there as men came close to his face and hummed and hawed and then told him that he must accept there was nothing that could be done. He had been through all of that. He had done it. It had been so hard. He couldn’t believe he was doing it again.

He became aware that tears were starting to prick in the corners of his eyes, and he swallowed hard. It was the bright light, of course, making his eyes water. He couldn’t be crying. But he wanted to get up and walk out of here and fold all that hope down again into a tiny thing that took up no space. It was ridiculous to go through all of this again.

He heard Morell muttering, ‘Really, Georg. You see the damage to the sclera here in the left eye. I can’t imagine – ’

But Bruner said, ‘You always were a pessimist. Now, I’m almost certain this is entirely superficial...’

And then finally Bruner turned off the bright light and Illya blinked and rubbed a hand over his eyes, and the doctor said, ‘Well, my pessimistic colleague isn’t so sure, Mr Kuryakin, but I think there’s a good chance that a corneal transplant will sit. The right eye, I am certain about. The left, perhaps it is a little more damaged, but I still think that a great deal of healing has gone on since you last consulted anyone about this. It will be worth an attempt.’

Illya clenched his hands so hard on the edge of the sofa cushion that his knuckles ached. He steadied himself, and asked, ‘Then what do I do now, Dr Bruner?’

‘Well, I would like you to see an ophthalmologist of my acquaintance in the United States so that he can note down all of the details that I cannot take today. Then I would suggest putting you on the waiting list for donor corneas,’ Bruner said. ‘When suitable ones are acquired, I would be able to operate. I do have to ask, though, if you have the funds for such an operation.’

Illya hesitated. U.N.C.L.E. would surely pay. They had been willing to pay had those first three consultations been positive. But before he could say anything, Napoleon said, ‘Yes, we have the funds.’

Illya bit back any reaction. He knew that Napoleon was well off. He had a wealthy family. And if U.N.C.L.E. declined to pay then he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to prevent Napoleon from doing so, short of simply disappearing out of Napoleon’s life, and he had no intention of doing that.

‘Well then,’ Bruner murmured. ‘The conference finishes on Friday. I will be back home by the following Monday. Mr Kuryakin, I am giving Mr Solo a card with the number of my appointments secretary on it. All you have to do is call and she will pass on the details of my American friend, and take the necessary details from you. It does take time, of course, for donor corneas to appear. The waiting list is long and few people choose to donate, unfortunately. But there is hope for you, Mr Kuryakin. There is definitely hope.’


	10. Chapter 10

There was no direct way to get from Cairo to Shannon, so this time Napoleon and Illya found themselves on an aeroplane bound for London Heathrow. It wasn’t, at least, such an arduous flight as the one from New York to Cairo via Paris.

Illya followed Napoleon carefully down the steps from the plane at Heathrow and drew in breath at the damp chill of the air. It was a long way from Cairo’s heat, and there was none of the crisp cold of New York. It was a wet cold that penetrated his coat and seeped into his toes. He imagined an overcast sky, heavy with rain.

‘We have time for coffee, at least,’ he said, taking a moment to feel his watch.

‘A little time to watch the world go by,’ Napoleon agreed, linking his arm into Illya’s. Illya didn’t object at the lax guiding. He had his cane, and it was nice to walk like this with Napoleon.

‘You can watch the world, I’ll watch the clock,’ he said. ‘That way when you’re distracted by girls in miniskirts at least I can tell you when we need to board.’

‘Girls in miniskirts, in this cold?’ Napoleon asked with a laugh.

‘There are always girls in miniskirts, and you always become distracted by them,’ Illya said darkly. ‘Failing that, there are air hostesses.’

Napoleon shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I’ll do my best to only have eyes for you.

They sat at a table in a busy, clattering area, and although Napoleon ordered coffee Illya stuck to tea, because the British knew how to make that, unlike the disaster that was usually unleashed upon a British coffee pot. He heard Napoleon’s expression of disgust and smiled.

‘I told you you should stick to tea,’ he commented.

‘Every time I think I’ll give it another try,’ Napoleon lamented. ‘Wait there, Illya. I’ll be right back.’

So Illya sat and listened as Napoleon’s footsteps lost themselves in the mill of activity. He could hear aero engines from outside, and inside there was a constant chatter, a clatter of feet, cases being set down and picked up again, children crying or shouting, parents remonstrating with their tired offspring. He picked up his tea cup again and sipped the hot drink, thinking about how long it had been since he had drunk proper Russian tea. There was a special place for his tea things in their kitchen cupboards, the cupboards that used to be just Napoleon’s. Napoleon had got rid of a few things and put Illya’s teapot in there, and found space for the samovar, and sometimes Illya would take it out and run his fingers over the metal contours and feel the tracing of the engraving all over its curved sides, but he didn’t use it so often because it was so much more complicated than just putting the kettle on the stove.

There was a little shop over in Brooklyn that he bought caravan tea from, but he didn’t go there often either. It required either Napoleon taking him or getting a taxi, and it always seemed a little too much fuss when he could easily buy regular tea from the grocery on the corner. But he did love to go into that shop. He remembered going there for the first time after losing his sight, one of his first trips out alone, because Napoleon had been sent to Milwaukee for a few days, and going to buy tea seemed like such a small thing, really. The cab had double parked in the street and horns had sounded, but the driver, a Jamaican man with a voice that made Illya think of rich plum colours, had ignored them all and come around and opened the cab door for him, asking, ‘You need help to the door?’

Illya had stepped out into that sea of uncertainty, the cars in the street honking, engines revving, with his so newly acquired cane in his hand. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, and he just stood there, until the cab driver took him by the elbow and told him there was a gap between two parked cars right there, then told him about the kerb, and then took him to the door of the shop. And Illya had opened his wallet to pay him, and trusted the man to take the right change, because he couldn’t yet tell the coins apart and he hadn’t got his clips to separate the notes. And then he had been left on the doorstep of the little shop, and he had felt adrift. The taxi driver couldn’t have done more, but he felt adrift.

So he had reached out and pushed the shop door open and heard the bell tinkle. It was a little steel bell, he remembered, set on top of the door. He took a few steps into the interior, the cane tapping and his feet stepping on the hollow wood floorboards, and the dusty, spicy scent of the place filling his nostrils. He knew that this shop was full of stacks of tins and packets, artfully placed in the middle of the floor, so he stood there, trying to work out what to do. He wanted his tea, but he didn’t know what to do.

And then a voice. ‘Mr Kuryakin! Oh, Mr Kuryakin! What is it that’s happened to you?’

It was the little woman who ran the shop, a Russian woman in her sixties from just outside of Leningrad, and it was so good to hear her voice, so good to hear Russian instead of American English. Illya had almost sagged as she came over to him and kissed him and hugged him and took his arm, and he tried to explain that there had been an accident and that now he was blind. So she took him into the back room, a place he had never been before, and it smelt so much like home, so much of the scents of Russian cooking and Russian tea. He had sat in a chair and stroked his fingers over the fabric of the arm and listened to the little noises as she filled the samovar and lit the flame and waited for the water to boil. And she had asked him again what had happened and he said, ‘An accident, Mrs Ponomareva.’

He fiddled with the cloth on the chair. It felt like it was covered with something loose, some kind of lace-edged covering, and said, ‘It was an accident in the lab,’ because she thought he was a scientist. ‘I got acid in my eyes.’

And she pressed his hand and said, ‘You poor boy, you poor boy. How that must have hurt. And how did you come here? You came here alone? Why are you alone? Are you living alone, Mr Kuryakin? Tell me you’re not.’

So Illya had dropped his head and said, ‘I’m living with my friend, Mrs Ponomareva, but he had to go out of town for a few days, and I ran out of tea.’

She paused to pour the water into the pot, and the beautiful smoky scent of Russian caravan tea had filled the air, and then she said, ‘And your friend left you alone and blind? But I would have sent Konstantin, Mr Kuryakin, if you had only telephoned. He would have brought you your tea. No need to trek all the way over here alone.’

She had served him tea, strong and sweet with strawberry jam, and he had sipped at it and felt so warm, but so strange at the same time, because it was so strange to be sitting here in a room he couldn’t see, talking in Russian and drinking tea and all the time thinking about how he was going to get home and what he would do with himself that evening with Napoleon away. There was a dish of lasagne defrosting on the counter and he would only have to slip it in the oven, but he hated to sit there alone. He hated having to guess which record was which if he wanted to listen, or putting the television on and listening to programmes made for people who could see, or putting the radio on and scrolling through the dial searching for something that wasn’t inane. He would call Napoleon on his communicator, though, and talk to him in whatever hotel room he was staying in, and perhaps feel a little less alone.

Mrs Ponomareva had given him his packet of tea for free. She had pressed two packets on him and called him a cab and when it arrived she had walked him out to it with such great care and hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks before he got in. It had been such a lovely hour, sitting in the back room of her shop and drinking real tea and talking in one of his native tongues. Then he had sat in the cab all the way back to Manhattan and gone back up to Napoleon’s apartment, and the scent of the caravan tea had been a wonderful, familiar thing when he took the packets out of the bag, but still, he had felt alone.

He was trying to avoid thinking about what Dr Bruner had told him. He knew that. It was easier to drift into reminiscences than to think about that. All he needed to do was to see Bruner’s American acquaintance, and have his name put down on the waiting list. But he couldn’t believe in that. He couldn’t believe in that fairy-tale-like ease. He had been let down so hard before, every time he had got his hopes up. He needed to fold all of that away for now. When they got home he could let himself think about it, but not until then. Until then he would pretend that nothing had changed.

‘Hey, Illya.’

There was a clatter as Napoleon set down his own cup of tea, and Illya smiled at the sound of him. Under the table he edged his leg forward until his ankle touched Napoleon’s ankle, and Napoleon asked, ‘You all right, partner? You looked a million miles away.’

‘Perhaps a thousand,’ Illya said, and he opened his watch and felt the hands and said, ‘You had better drink up, Napoleon. We’ll need to board in half an hour.’

It would be good to be home when the Irish part of this affair was over. There was always a subtle undercurrent of stress to all these unfamiliar places, and it would be good to know where everything was, to be able to go out on his own, to be able to sit with Napoleon in the evening in front of the fire with a drink in his hand, and go with him to his own bed when they both grew sleepy. It would be good to be back in the office, to hear Sarah’s voice and go through the piles of print-outs she always had prepared for him, to feel secure again. And he knew that his feeling of a need for security had very little to do with these travels in strange places, and far more to do with the turmoil that Dr Bruner had unleashed.

  


((O))

  


It was raining in Ireland in a fine mist that coated Illya’s hair and seeped under his collar and made his shoulders itch. They only walked from the plane to the terminal, and then from the terminal to a cab, but just those few hundred yards left him soaked. He sat in the back of the cab getting colder and colder as it drove through the dark land and Napoleon told him he would describe what was out there, but there was nothing to see, because they were driving out of Shannon to a town some way away, and the countryside was only occasionally lit by a light in a farm window or a small cluster of houses and street lights. Sometimes the scent of manure drifted in to the cab, but mostly there was just damp and cold.

‘Can you recommend a place to stay?’ Napoleon asked the cab driver when the dark became prickled with a vague degree of golden light. They were entering the small town, and they hadn’t had a chance to book anywhere from Cairo. ‘Somewhere we can dry out, perhaps?’

And the driver took them to a pub somewhere in the winding streets and said, ‘Mr Nugent’ll make sure you’re dry, and the food’s fair, too.’

‘As long as there’s a bed,’ Illya murmured, as Napoleon came to help him out of the cab.

‘Watch out for the kerb. It’s high and we’re about a foot out,’ Napoleon said, and Illya slid his cane across an uneven surface and then up the vertical stone of the kerb. The road had felt rough under the car, and he wondered if perhaps the street was old enough that some cobbles remained. He wasn’t fond of cobbles. They tended to be slippery.

Illya stood while Napoleon paid the driver, and listened to their cases being deposited on the pavement, and he wondered how they were going to get inside when he had to hold on to either Napoleon’s arm or his cane, and there wasn’t a little crowd of Egyptian boys offering to carry their things.

‘You take that,’ Napoleon said, giving him his own case, ‘and I can manage two in one hand and one in the other.’

So Illya accepted that, shoving his cane under his arm and taking hold of Napoleon’s arm, which was pulled down a little by the weight of the case in his hand. He followed Napoleon into a space full of talking and heat and smoke and the scent of alcohol, and he turned his ear to the sound of crackling.

‘Napoleon, they have a fire,’ he said with a grin, everything else suddenly shoved to the back of his mind.

‘Yes, and there’s nowhere to sit,’ Napoleon told him grimly, but then they were being approached by a man with a broad accent, the cases were being taken, they were assured that there was a nice room as long as they didn’t mind sharing a double bed, and Illya found himself manhandled through what felt like a dense crowd towards the sound of the fire.

‘Shove yerself out of there, lad. Go on. Let the gentleman sit down, now.’

He wasn’t sure where Napoleon was any more. The man who had hold of him had a deep, rich voice and a scent of tobacco about him, and he was manoeuvring him through the pub while Illya held his cane protectively in front of his body and tried not to hit anyone.

‘There, sit you down,’ the man said, and Illya felt out blindly and his wrist was taken and moved to the rough fabric of what he discovered to be a wing-back chair. It was so close to the fire that when he sat down his knees started to burn, and he had to turn them away. He leant his cane against the chair and basked in the heat.

‘Now, will you be having a drink, sir?’ the man continued.

‘Er – my friend – ’ Illya began, and the man said, ‘Don’t you be worrying about that. He’s just straightening out all the details, paying for the room. Now, that’s a lovely accent you have, isn’t it? Where are you from?’

‘The Ukraine,’ Illya said rather awkwardly. He held out a hand and said, ‘Illya Kuryakin.’

The man took it and shook it, and introduced himself as Eddie Nugent. His hand was warm and dry around Illya’s cold fingers. Really he just wanted to be left alone, to have dinner, and to sleep, but the man plumped himself down opposite and started asking him why he had come so far to such a small place. Then he remembered he had asked Illya what he wanted to drink, and Illya said, ‘A pint of stout, please,’ and that got him a noise of approval.

Then Napoleon returned and just as Illya was picking up his drink the man excused himself and told Napoleon that a menu would be brought in no time at all, and finally they were left alone.

Illya sighed in the aftermath of the whirlwind.

‘I couldn’t say we have not been welcomed,’ he commented, and Napoleon chuckled.

‘Well, I’ve secured us a nice room that apparently sits right above where we are now, so all the heat from this big fireplace goes up through the back wall. There’s only a double bed, but – ’

‘Ah, well, we all must endure some trials in life,’ Illya commented with a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth. The fire was wonderful and he was hungry, but it would be lovely to climb into that bed with Napoleon.

‘Ah, thank you,’ Napoleon said to someone else, then told Illya, ‘The menu. Food looks good. Want me to read it out?’

Illya had his eyes closed and was lolling his head back against the chair. ‘Oh, choose me what you think I’ll like,’ he said. ‘I trust your judgement.’

He could feel the mist of damp that had penetrated his clothes since they disembarked in London slowly rising away from him in the heat. If he let himself, he could forget that they were here on a mission. There was just the fire and the babble of voices, and Napoleon a few feet away. They couldn’t really talk about the mission here, with so many people around, so he put it out of his head. Napoleon ordered him a steak pie, and a lamb shank for himself, and half an hour later he was leaning forward to the low table between the chairs and filling himself with hot, rich food. Then he followed Napoleon up a set of creaking stairs and ducked under a beam when he was warned to, and when they went through their bedroom door his hand passed over unpainted wood boards.

‘So, this is our room,’ he commented, trying to read the feeling of the place. It was relatively small, and he could hear flames spitting. ‘An open fire?’

‘A small one,’ Napoleon said. ‘Must lead into the same chimney as the big one downstairs. There’s a fire guard in front of it, but take care, won’t you?’

‘I always take care. Bed?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Napoleon said with feeling. Illya thought he was smiling. ‘You know that brass framed double bed I mentioned? Well, it’s here, in this room. Quite high, big enough for – well, you know, for two bachelors who need to share a room. What else? Hmm, there’s a set of drawers, a nightstand on either side of the bed with a lamp on my side – ’

‘Your side?’

‘Well, you won’t be using it so I thought I’d call dibs on that side. You can read quite well without a light. But don’t interrupt. There’s a rather tarnished mirror over the drawers, and an armchair in the corner by the window. The window – ’ And Napoleon moved away from Illya’s hand and he heard curtains swishing back on rattling rings. ‘ – looks out over something, might be a back yard. It’s dark out there, just a few lights from other houses in the town.’

‘And the bathroom?’

‘Ah, the lovely barmaid told me that was just down the hall. Shall we take a look?’

Illya sighed. ‘Probably sensible, although I’d rather explore the bed,’ he said. He did far prefer places that had their own en suite bathrooms.

So he went with Napoleon to find out about the bathroom, then they returned to their room and Illya threw himself onto the bed while Napoleon sorted out the cases. It was deliciously warm up here, and there was some kind of woollen bedspread underneath him, and the fire filled the room with a soft noise of wood popping and hissing as the flames licked around it.

‘Do we really have to be on a mission?’ he asked rather plaintively.

From across the room, Napoleon laughed. ‘You were the one wanting to get out of the office, weren’t you? Anyway, we’re not on a mission tonight. Tomorrow I’ll see about getting hold of a car and we can take a bit of a tour, see if we can find where these people are taking off from to export their drugs. If you want to come, that is?’

‘Of course I want to come. I may not be much help spotting airfields, but I want to come.’

‘Well then, tonight we’ll forget about the mission,’ Napoleon said, his voice becoming smooth as melted chocolate as he came back to the bed. Illya felt hands on his waistband, and he smiled as Napoleon started to peel away his clothes. Yes, this was a good room, and this was a good bed. He was sure the good Catholic folks of the town would be horrified to know what he and Napoleon were about to do, but perhaps that made it all the more fun.

  


((O))

  


In the morning Illya sat at a table in the now quiet pub, eating bacon and toast and eggs and mushrooms and black pudding and everything else the soft-voiced girl had offered him when he had sat down, listening obliquely to the voices of the other residents at their own repast. Rather fainter, in the hallway outside, he could hear Napoleon on the telephone. He was trying to hire a car, and Illya could hear him getting more and more frustrated, his voice growing louder and louder.

‘More tea, darling?’ the young waitress asked out of nowhere, touching his shoulder, and Illya stifled a jump. He found his cup and lifted it, and realised it was empty.

‘Oh, yes, please,’ he said, favouring her with one of his more charming smiles. As she poured he said, ‘The breakfast is very good. Very good.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell mam,’ the girl replied. ‘Milk? In your tea?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he nodded. ‘Thank you.’

Illya turned back to his plate and found a sausage with the tip of his knife, then speared it with his fork. Then he realised that the girl was still there, watching him, and he lifted his head enquiringly.

‘Was there something else?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. She was probably watching him because he was blind, and hadn’t even expected him to realise that she was still there.

He decided to deflect her interest. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t get many foreigners round here?’

‘Oh, no, we get plenty,’ she said quickly, and her voice moved down and a chair scraped as she seated herself in Napoleon’s vacated place. ‘Plenty of tourists here. Americans, mostly, all looking for their roots. You don’t have any Irish in you?’

Illya smiled. ‘Er, no,’ he said politely. ‘Not as far as I know. I’m not sure the Irish ever made it to Kiev. So, do you have any Americans staying here at the moment? I mean, apart from Mr Solo?’

‘Oh, not here,’ she told him. ‘Down the road, though, at McGinty’s, there’s a pair stay there all the time. I don’t know what they do. There’s no business for them round here, but I see them all the time. Big guys, you know. Look like they’ve stepped out of a picture.’

Illya’s eyebrow rose. ‘Really?’

He applied himself to his breakfast again, and he could feel her watching him again. Finally he said, ‘Look, Miss – Nugent, is it? Is there anything you wanted to ask me? Something you wanted to say?’

‘Oh, no, Mr – ’

‘Kuryakin,’ he supplied.

‘Mr Kuryakin. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just – well – ’ and she giggled a little, then said, ‘You’re much better looking than most of the men who – ’

Gunfire exploded in the bar. Illya’s reaction was instant. It was coming from over by the door, and he pushed the table over to make a shield, sending its contents clattering and smashing to the flag floor. He heard Miss Nugent scream and he grabbed out for her and fumbled her to the floor, hissing, ‘Keep your head  _ down! _ ’

He wanted to call out for Napoleon, but he knew better. He couldn’t do anything to help, and calling for him would only alert the attackers to the fact that they were associated with one another. He heard the sputs of silenced shots, and recognised the distinctive sound of Napoleon’s gun. The shots were close by; the muzzle flash was bright in his vision.

He held his hand hard over the waitress’s head, keeping her on the floor, until abruptly the gunshots stopped, and silence spread to fill the space. He lay still, waiting. Someone started to cry. There was shouting from outside. Illya stayed very still behind the table, because he couldn’t be sure that the gunmen were dead or gone, just that they were silent.

Then he heard Napoleon’s beautiful voice, shouting out, ‘Illya? Illya?’

He sighed out his relief. Only now did he notice how hard his heart was thudding against his ribs.

‘Here,’ he called back. He kept his head down still. ‘Napoleon, are you all right? Is anyone hurt?’ Then he turned to the girl beneath him and asked, ‘Are you all right?’

She said something unintelligible and then burst into tears, and he touched his hand to her head, trying to feel her scalp, her face. The wet on her face was tears, he thought, not blood. He couldn’t smell blood, just the mixed scents of human sweat and the remains of his breakfast, which must have been spread over the floor when he overturned the table.

‘Miss Nugent, listen to me,’ he said rather harshly. ‘I can’t see. Tell me if you’re all right?’

‘Yes,’ she snuffled then, through her tears. ‘Yes, I’m all right.’

Illya felt a great surge of guilt at what had just happened. Those attackers had undoubtedly been Thrush. They would not have come here to this innocent Irish pub had he and Napoleon not been staying here.

He heard running footsteps in the street outside, a door banging, a stentorian voice shouting, and then Napoleon said in his smoothest voice, ‘Gentlemen, if I can have a word?’

‘Listen,’ Illya said, shaking the girl’s shoulder a little. ‘Can you see my cane?’

‘W-what?’ she asked him, still shaking with tears.

‘My cane,’ he repeated, trying so hard to keep his voice from becoming a growl, but not quite succeeding. This was so  _ frustrating _ . ‘I need my cane.’

Then Napoleon was over by him saying, ‘Here it is, Illya,’ and as he got up Napoleon put the cane into his hand, and guided him with great care across a room that seemed to be strewn with obstacles. He wanted to feel over Napoleon, to check him for wounds, but Napoleon didn’t seem to be in pain at all. He took him through into another space, and here there  _ was _ the smell of blood and a scent of shit, a real scent of death, and Illya’s nose wrinkled a little.

‘They’re dead?’ he asked.

‘Both,’ Napoleon said, close to his ear. ‘Which made our job short and sweet, I suppose, or part of it.’ Then he raised his voice. ‘All right, gentlemen.’ He nudged Illya and said, ‘Illya, there are two gentlemen here from the Garda. Gentlemen, we’re with the U.N.C.L.E.. My name is Napoleon Solo and this is Illya Kuryakin.’

‘And do you always bring gun toting maniacs into town?’ a man’s voice asked rather angrily.

‘Er, no, I can assure you we try our best not to,’ Napoleon said in a low voice. ‘Listen, this might be easier at the station, don’t you think? Perhaps your man can call someone to clean up here?’

It was raining again outside, and Illya wished he had a coat. He let Napoleon do the talking as they walked up the street with the officer of the Garda, because he was concentrating on not slipping on the slick flags of the pavement, and he had not seen anything at all, just heard the shooting.

‘There were two of them,’ Napoleon was saying. ‘Leon Michea, the one who – er – well, I think he succumbed to a gut shot, was responsible for using your beautiful country as a stopping point for trafficking drugs into the US, officer. They ship them this far, then fly them over to America and sell them to raise money for Thrush. Are – er – are you aware of Thrush?’

‘My wife’s a birdwatcher, Mr Solo,’ the officer said rather darkly. ‘I’m an officer of the law.’

Illya could hear the smile in Napoleon’s voice when he said, ‘Well, we’re both officers of the law, sir. Thrush are a nasty international organisation bent on world domination. They’re the biggest threat to the free world since Hitler. I’m sorry for the chaos in that charming little pub – they must have gotten wind of our presence and come to sort us out. But, believe me, you don’t want Thrush setting up their nests in your town.’

It was a relief when they turned in to the police station, which was not a great deal warmer, but was at least dry, and Illya sat in a wooden chair next to Napoleon as the officer fiddled with some kind of gas heater, and cursed under his breath. Finally the heat started coming out, and he sat down.

‘So, you and Mr Kur- ’

‘Kuryakin,’ Illya supplied quietly.

‘You and Mr Kuryakin, you’re both agents for the U.N.C.L.E.?’

Illya took out his wallet and found his card, assuming that Napoleon was doing the same. He was sure that the officer was questioning how a blind man was an agent, but he wasn’t about to launch into long explanations. It was irritating and time consuming enough to have to sit here and explain at length to the Garda all about Thrush and how it had happened that a gun battle had taken place in a quiet pub. Although the officer eventually acknowledged their international jurisdiction and Napoleon’s right to carry a weapon, he obviously was not happy with the situation.

When they were finally released, there were more explanations and apologies to be given back at the pub, where the Nugent wife and daughter were crying and the landlord was furious. And then Napoleon’s communicator sounded, because apparently the officer had called U.N.C.L.E. to confirm their story, and another long conversation ensued, which ended with the words, ‘Mr Kuryakin, a cab will be outside your location within half an hour. Your ticket will be ready to pick up at Shannon airport when you arrive. I’m sure you’re capable of looking after yourself. You’ll be met in New York by Miss Williams.’

It felt as if everything had turned to tatters. It was true that a gun battle in a peaceful Irish pub wasn’t the best of situations, but that was hardly Illya’s fault any more than was the fault of the twenty or so innocents who were there that morning. It wasn’t Napoleon’s fault either that Thrush had cottoned so quickly on to their presence; although there was the lingering, niggling thought that a pair of foreign tourists, one of whom was blind, was maybe too distinctive to slip past in the spy business.

Illya sat moodily in the armchair in the corner of their shared room, his thoughts turning in on themselves in a proper display of Russian gloom.

‘Then this is it, Napoleon,’ he commented, listening to his partner as he moved about packing Illya’s things back into his suitcase. ‘Waverly will not let me out of the building again, I’m sure. I will be office-bound for life.’

‘Now, Illya,’ Napoleon said in an infuriatingly rational tone. ‘You know the old man. He’s blaming himself more than us for sending you on to Ireland in the first place. He hates it when things go wrong. It’s not your fault Thrush decided to open the gates of hell in this place.’

‘It does not matter  _ how _ it happened,’ Illya commented dully. ‘It is that it  _ did  _ happen.’

Napoleon came to him then and crouched in front of him and took his hands, kissing them. ‘Now, my beautiful, gloomy little Russian,’ he said, ‘don’t anticipate trouble. We’ll get back home – ’

‘ _ I  _ will get back home,’ Illya corrected him. ‘ _ You  _ will still be here.’

The softness of Napoleon’s lips on his knuckles was so nice, though, so sweet. His breath was warm and beautiful. He didn’t want to leave him and go back to that big, empty apartment.

‘All right,  _ you’ll _ get back home. And Waverly will calm down, and there’ll be another surveillance mission – ’

‘And you will be on it, while I sit in the office like a glorified secretary in a position given to me out of pity, and – ’

‘ _ Illya _ ,’ Napoleon chided him, kissing his hands again. ‘You do  _ not _ have that job out of pity. You have it because you are incredibly qualified to do it. Now, promise me, you’re not going to spend the whole journey home in a proper Russian brood. The air stewardesses won’t like it, for a start.’

That made Illya smile a little. ‘Trust you to think of the air stewardesses.’

‘Only to think of, not to touch,’ Napoleon promised.

Illya reached out and carded his fingers through Napoleon’s hair, brushing past the wound at the side of his head and wincing on Napoleon’s behalf.

‘It’s only a little sore,’ Napoleon told him before he could ask. ‘I’ll be okay, Illya. I’ll sort out the leftovers of this Thrush airfield, and I’ll be home. I promise. And you will go on the waiting list with Dr Bruner, and then – ’

‘And then we will see,’ Illya said darkly, not unaware of the layers of meaning in those words.

‘We will see,’ Napoleon echoed.

He leant forward towards Illya and a hand touched the side of Illya’s head, and then Napoleon’s lips pressed against his, sweetly, chastely at first, but then deepening into a kiss of real passion, where Illya tasted Napoleon’s mouth and sighed out his need. There was no time for more than this one hot kiss. The taxi would be here soon.

He slid forward with a groan and came to his knees in front of Napoleon, and hugged him so hard that Napoleon gasped.

‘Easy there,’ Napoleon said, but he was hugging Illya back almost as hard. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he promised. ‘They’ll look after you on the airplane and Sarah’s meeting you.’

‘Oh, I don’t have any fears about travelling,’ Illya said, and he didn’t. He had taken enough cabs to be confident that he could manage and that when he couldn’t manage someone would help him. The aeroplane would be little different. What he feared was that after this one bright spark of living again he was going back to never being allowed out of the office. Somehow he seemed to see that so much more clearly than Napoleon.


	11. Chapter 11

Napoleon’s hug stayed with him as he sat in the cab back to Shannon. He wished he could have taken Napoleon as well. He had promised Napoleon that he would try to shake off his Russian brood, but he wasn’t having any success. He foresaw a life bound to the office again, and couldn’t imagine that a consultation with Dr Bruner would give him anything but hopes that would be smashed again like a Christmas tree bauble. It would almost be better to put every thought of Dr Bruner out of his mind right now and continue living his life.

The car tyres swished on a road covered in water, rain dashed against the window, and it was chilly in the back seat. He sat with his arms folded around his body thinking about that long moment in the pub when shots had been snapping through the air and he had known that there was nothing he could do but keep his head down and hide. He had missed the buzz of that, but when it had happened it was a terrible feeling to know that when it came down to the wire he was so useless. He could perhaps help Napoleon in a physical fight, but not with a gun. Even with his training, shooting at audible targets, he would be of no help in a gun battle, because he couldn’t shoot without the risk of hitting his partner. It was all insufferable, all interminable, and so horrifically unfair.

There was other traffic, occasionally a car horn. He was aware of the flickering of the light but he didn’t know if it were flickering because of trees or buildings. He sat thinking of the last time he had driven with sight, on their way to that lab in Stockholm. He usually drove because he enjoyed it so much. And then there had been that other time, in Napoleon’s car in the parking lot. Just sitting in the driver’s seat and laying his hands on the wheel had felt good. He had sat there just imagining moving forward at speed, and then Napoleon had said, ‘Go on, Illya. Turn the key. The lot’s empty. That’s why I stopped here.’

Oh, it had been strange at first. Strange and scary. It didn’t stop being scary. Napoleon had done up Illya’s lap belt, and then said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you need to stop for. It’s a big place.’

So he had started the car and pressed down on the gas, and he had rumbled forwards over the crunching ground. And then he had gone a little faster, and a little faster. It had felt so fast, and he had asked, ‘How fast am I going?’ and Napoleon had replied, ‘A little over thirty, Illya. But it’s fun, huh?’

‘Oh, god, yes,’ he had said. That had been crazy, that evening of driving around that empty place, getting faster and faster on each circuit, until Napoleon was screaming in terror. It had been crazy, but it had been fun.

‘Hey, did you hear me? We’re at the airport,’ an Irish accented voice broke into his thoughts.

‘Oh.’

He shook himself and picked up his cane from the footwell and shoved his dark glasses on, then fumbled at the door, searching for the handle. He couldn’t find it. He didn’t know this car model. He clenched his fist in frustration. Then the driver came around and opened it for him and said, ‘Watch your head there on the roof,’ as he got out, and he bit back the urge to snap,  _ I always watch my head. Every damn time. _

He fumbled for his wallet, asking, ‘How much do I owe you?’

He had no idea what money he had in there now. There were American notes, Egyptian notes, Irish notes. The loose change he had was an utter mess. He had meant to ask Napoleon to help him sort it out, but he hadn’t. But the driver said, ‘No, put it away. I’ve already been paid a set fare by your uncle. I’m to take you and your luggage in to the terminal.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Illya said. That inner voice screamed again.  _ I don’t want to be taken in to the terminal. I want to manage on my own.  _ But he stood still and listened while the man got his case from the boot of the car, and when the driver took hold of his arm he didn’t bother to rearrange things so he was being guided properly. He just dropped the tip of his cane to the ground and walked where he was taken.

He sat on one of a row of seats in a busy departure lounge. The cab driver had taken him right up to the desk and handed him to a helpful airline lady, who had found his ticket and checked his bag in and brought him here. She had brought him coffee in a polystyrene cup, then left with a promise that although she was busy, as soon as the flight was boarding she would come and help him again.

How he hated it. He had got used to relying on the kindness of strangers, but right now he hated it. Napoleon was miles away in that little town, and he felt like he was being sent home in disgrace.

He sipped his coffee and listened to the hubbub of the airport, the melange of accents that were mostly Irish but occasionally English or American or various other nationalities. He recalled so many hours spent in airports, alone or with Napoleon at his side to exchange sly comments and people-watch with. He missed that. God, how he missed it all...

His communicator warbled, and he put the cup of coffee between his knees and pulled the pen out of his pocket.

‘Kuryakin,’ he said tersely.

And Napoleon’s voice came from the tiny speaker, and his spine relaxed a little at his wonderful voice.

‘Illya, I just wanted to see how you’re doing.’

He straightened up again, trying to make himself sound more his normal self as he replied, ‘Well, I managed to find the airport, Napoleon. It really isn’t that difficult. Have you managed to do the same?’

Napoleon gave a small noise of discontent. ‘I’m still trying to find a hire car right now, Illya. I’m afraid this might take longer than I’d hoped. But they’re sending an agent over from Dublin to give me back up, and if I haven’t found one by the time he gets here I guess I can ride share.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said. The amount of disappointment he felt was ridiculous, but there it was. He felt as if he were being replaced. Waverly had shipped him out because he was a liability and sent someone else in his place. ‘Well, be careful, won’t you?’ he said.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon replied, and Illya knew that over that distance and through that tinny little speaker Napoleon had read his tone perfectly. ‘I could really do with a second gun. There might be any number of hostiles at that airfield.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Illya said. ‘Hence my telling you to take care.’

‘I  _ will  _ take care,’ Napoleon promised, ‘and I will be back in New York as soon as I possibly can.’

‘Mr Kuryakin?’

Illya’s head jerked up at the voice, then he said, ‘Look, Napoleon, I have to go. Check in later, okay? It doesn’t matter what time.’

And Napoleon said goodbye, and Illya read the unspoken love in his tone, and he capped the communicator and turned his face up to the woman who had spoken, asking, ‘Is the flight boarding now?’

‘Yes, Mr Kuryakin, I’m to take you on before the other passengers. Your luggage has all gone through.’

Illya sighed and put down the empty coffee cup on the seat beside him, and then followed the woman’s arm. It was still raining, or raining again, as they crossed the tarmac. He was starting to wonder if it ever stopped raining in this place. When the stewardess at the top of the steps asked him in a very kind voice to leave his cane with her he resisted for a moment, but he felt so tired of all of this, so he relinquished it and followed his guide to his seat, an aisle seat not far into the plane. Soon enough, he supposed, he would have to get up to let someone else take the window seat.

He gave the stewardess his overcoat when she asked and heard her put it in the locker. He considered asking to be shown the bathroom, but no. He was tired. He felt enormously tired by all of this. He hadn’t felt this bone weary in a long time. Perhaps he had just grown unused to this kind of travel, swapping countries and climates with such rapidity. Or perhaps he was just tired of the whole thing, of being dependent, of being sidelined, of being trapped in this horrible vague blur that stopped him from doing almost everything that he loved to do.

The plane started to fill with the other passengers, and sure enough, he had to get out of his seat to let someone else take their window seat. It was a man, elderly by the sound of his voice, rather deferential, probably pleasant. He probably would have been pleasant if Illya had been in the mood, but he wasn’t in the mood for anything. He just closed his eyes and leant his head back, and when the stewardess came to make sure he could manage his seatbelt for take off he let her do it for him without protest. The plane’s engines roared, it trundled over the tarmac, he was pressed back into the seat by sudden acceleration, and then they were in the air.

  


((O))

  


He drifted in and out of sleep. The plane vibrated around him. The air seemed to hiss. It was thick with cigarette smoke and dry in his lungs. Then someone was poking him in the arm and saying, ‘They’re bringing round dinner, young man. I thought you might want to be awake.’

Illya blinked and shuffled in his chair and pushed his sunglasses more firmly back onto his nose. His legs felt stiff and he wished he could get up and walk about.

‘Dinner?’ he asked, stupid with sleep.

‘You’ve been asleep – oh, about two hours, I think.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said. Being on an aircraft without being able to see and without Napoleon to tell him what was out of the window felt vaguely unreal.

He reached out in front of him and fiddled with the clip that let the tray down over his knees. He listened to the slow progression of the stewardess down the length of the cabin asking, ‘Beef or fish? Coffee or tea?’ And then she got to him and he chose beef and was left with a dubious smelling tray on the table in front of him, and a cup of black coffee. He had learnt in these few recent trips that he hated eating on aeroplanes. He ate very carefully, and willed the man next to him not to strike up conversation, but of course he did, because it was the habit of people to talk over food.

‘Hard work, travelling on your own, I suppose.’

‘Not really,’ Illya replied. He wanted to inject a Siberian winter into his tone but he tried to keep it civil, at least. ‘There isn’t much to do on a flight like this.’

He wished he had something to read, but his Braille books were really too big and cumbersome for getting out on a plane, so the Camus and the article he had read and re-read were stored in his suitcase in the hold. He wished for the convenient ease of a paperback novel or a sheaf of papers, although of course he couldn’t really get U.N.C.L.E. papers out with a civilian sitting next to him.

‘The movie will be starting in a minute,’ the man said. ‘Some romantic comedy, I suppose. They hate to offend, don’t they? I heartily wish people would take more time to offend these days.’

Illya grunted. He didn’t really want to sit here listening to a film soundtrack either. He scraped about in the depression in his tray with his fork, then asked, ‘Is there dessert on here?’

‘Er, there is, young man,’ his seatmate said instantly. ‘Apple pie and custard, I think. Top right of the tray.’

So Illya thanked him and found his spoon and finished off the rather mediocre tasting dessert, then dropped his hands back to his lap and closed his eyes. After a while the stewardess came past, collecting all the trays. She asked him if he were all right, and he told her politely that he was fine. He sat there while the inane film played through speakers and people around him chatted quietly. He felt the hands on his watch. They had been in the air for about four hours. He was going to spend this whole trip stuck in this seat, ruminating.

A spear of anger pushed through him. He’d be damned if he were going to do that. He touched his hand to his pocket to feel his communicator, then asked the man beside him, ‘Could you tell me where the bathroom is?’

‘Oh, it’s – ’ The man hesitated, then said, ‘There are five rows of seats in front of ours, then the bathroom is on the left. Do you need some help?’

‘No, thank you,’ Illya said politely. He pushed himself up and felt his way forward past the seats, wishing he had been more forceful when they asked him to give up his cane. He hated being without it, hated having to walk with his hands held out like this.

He went past the fifth row of seats then felt a smooth wall blocking in both sides of the aisle. He slipped his fingers along until they touched a seam. He had found the door. There was a little plaque screwed to the door, which he assumed said  _ toilet _ , but it was smooth and he couldn’t tell. He just had to trust to the man’s directions. He found the catch and opened the door, and the smell of chemical disinfectant told him that he was in the right place. He hadn’t found out what type of aircraft this was, though, so he couldn’t rely on his stock of memory of different aeroplane bathrooms. He had to find the toilet by carefully feeling about with his foot. He really wished he had the cane.

But he found it, and he sat down, and he pulled his communicator out of his pocket and sat there silently for a moment, just pressing it against his forehead, eyes closed. He had no real reason to call Napoleon. He might be in the middle of something. But then, that never stopped Waverly. He uncapped it and pulled out the aerial and said, ‘Open channel D. Napoleon?’

Napoleon’s reply was instant. ‘Illya, how are you doing?’

He resisted the rather pathetic impulse to grouse and moan. Napoleon would just feel awful.

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Somewhere over the Atlantic. I’m in the bathroom. I thought I’d take the chance to call you.’

‘Ah, that’s why I hear water running. Well in that case, I change my greeting,’ Napoleon said, his voice rich with warmth. ‘Good afternoon, my beautiful Russian lover. How are you really feeling, because I can tell by your voice that you’re still in that brood. I wish I could see the pout on your face, because it just makes me want to kiss you all over.’

Illya smiled at that. So, Napoleon was alone too, then. The colleague from Dublin must not have arrived yet.

‘I am trying not to brood,’ he promised. ‘But thinking of you back there on your own, and sitting on an aeroplane without anything to do, next to an interminable bore...’

‘Not a lovely young lady, then?’ Napoleon said, sounding glad.

‘That wasn’t really fair. He’s not a bore and he’s been very helpful. But I am so bored, Napoleon. And they took my cane.’ He heard the whine in his voice but he didn’t try to hide it.

‘They are scoundrels of the highest degree. I’m sorry you’re bored, but if it helps, I’m bored too. I didn’t manage to persuade the lovely Nugents to let me keep my room, and I don’t blame them after I nearly got them and their clientèle killed. The agent from Dublin hasn’t gotten here yet. I’m in a miserable little room in the back of our delightful Garda’s house, because I couldn’t persuade anyone else in town to give a bed to the mad American who brings gun fights to town, and I haven’t managed to hire a car either, so I’m stuck here listening to the rain and looking at the damp patch in the corner of the ceiling until he gets here. I wish I were with you. I really do. I thought Ireland was a welcoming place, but this is as close to a hostile nation as I’ve been recently.’

‘Well, they don’t like it when you nearly get their citizens killed, Napoleon,’ Illya commented with a slight smile. It shouldn’t help, but it did help that Napoleon was bored and miserable too.

‘You, at least, will be able to go home tonight and light the fire and order take out – do order take out, Illya. Don’t cobble together leftovers. I don’t want you eating anything mouldy.’

‘I can taste mould, you know, and smell it,’ Illya commented.

‘And  _ use the fire guard _ ,’ Napoleon continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I don’t want to come home to a burned out shell.’

‘I can look after the fire quite well now, too,’ Illya objected. ‘I always use the fire guard. I’ve got no more desire to be burnt to death than any normal man.’

‘Still, I worry,’ Napoleon sighed.

‘I know you do,’ Illya smiled. ‘And I worry about you. But we’ll both be all right, won’t we? And you’ll be home soon.’

‘I will be home as soon as I can ever free myself of this blasted rain-drenched emerald isle, Illya, I promise. I’m not going to let a couple of Thrush goons keep me from you. So you go back to your interminable bore and rejoice in the fact that your toes are warm, unlike mine. Call me when you get in, any time. I don’t care what time it is at either end. Promise?’

‘I promise,’ Illya assured him. He smiled quietly for a moment, then said, ‘I love you, Napoleon.’

‘As I do you, more than you know, sweetheart,’ Napoleon replied. ‘And when I get back we will prove it to each other in so many ways...’

‘So many positions...’

‘So many places,’ Napoleon finished off.

‘I’d better go, or they’ll start banging on the door,’ Illya said reluctantly.

‘Then  _ au revoir _ , my love,’ Napoleon told him, and Illya distinctly heard the sound of him kissing the microphone on his communicator.

‘ _ Do svidaniya _ , Napoleon,’ Illya replied, and he capped the communicator before Napoleon could eke out the conversation even further in sweet nothings, and pushed it into his pocket.

  


((O))

  


Illya wasn’t sure what time it was when the plane landed. He wasn’t sure he cared, because all he really wanted was his bed. He was tired and stiff and he was still in his Russian brood. The eight hour flight hadn’t served to make him feel any better, and the only relief when the elderly man next to him poked his arm and woke him up was that they had landed and it was finally over. He waited in his seat, listening to the other passengers all moving down the aisle, and hoped the stewardess would remember him. Finally she came to him and got his coat from the locker and said, ‘I’d put it on now, if I were you, Mr Kuryakin. It’s cold out there.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, shrugging into the coat, and he let her guide him towards the door, where the cold was pressing in to the warm interior of the plane, and then she stopped and said, ‘Oh!’

‘What is it?’ he asked rather grumpily.

‘I – er – Betsy, have you seen Mr Kuryakin’s cane? It was right here.’

His heart sank. A passenger or two edged past him, and the stewardess gently moved him over to the side and said, ‘I can’t see your cane, Mr Kuryakin. It was right here. I made sure it was here for you...’

‘I left it in your care,’ Illya said very darkly. ‘I expected it to be here.’

‘Oh, but it was!’ she said, flustered. ‘Betsy, are you sure you – ?’

Illya sighed and leant against the wall, and waited, but they couldn’t find the cane.

‘Look, just let me off the plane,’ he said at last. ‘It’s freezing cold here. I want to get inside.’

‘Oh, well – ’ She sounded so upset, but Illya couldn’t bring himself to feel much sympathy. ‘Well, then, come on. Take care of the steps, though. There’s a lot of snow...’

‘ _ I  _ take  _ your _ arm,’ Illya said in a growl as she started to propel him towards the open door. He had visions of his trip ending in a nice long fall down icy steps to the tarmac below. He hated this, having to go down steps upon which the snow had no doubt been trodden into a thin crust of ice, with no cane and an inept guide. But he got to the bottom safely and stumbled tiredly across the tarmac holding the arm of the stewardess with snow flying into his face, shivering and huddling against the bitter cold.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Kuryakin,’ the stewardess kept saying. ‘It was right by the exit. I’m afraid someone must have taken it.’

‘They must have thought it was a marvellous joke,’ Illya said bitterly. ‘I have a spare in my case. That will do for now.’

‘Now, how do you fit it in your case?’ she asked in an astonished voice.

‘It folds up,’ Illya said, trying so hard to keep the withering disdain he felt from his voice.

She patted her hand over his. ‘Well, let’s go to the carousel and get your luggage. How many cases do you have?’

‘Just the one,’ he said. He had left all the equipment except his brailler with Napoleon.

‘Well, then, it will only be a few minutes, I’m sure,’ she assured him. ‘Oh, the door,’ she said a little too late, and Illya put out his hand and whacked his knuckles on the glass. It was yet another small sting in a very bad day.

As they went inside the snow stopped, at least, and it was a little warmer. At least this way he was fast tracked through customs, which was fast anyway due to his U.N.C.L.E. identification. Soon they were at the carousel and the woman said, ‘What does your case look like, Mr Kuryakin?’

Illya stifled a slightly hysterical urge to laugh. ‘I don’t know,’ he said blandly. ‘I’m blind.’ Napoleon had bought the luggage a few months ago the last time they had taken a weekend away. Then he sighed and said, ‘It’s a rigid suitcase, rather modern, plastic finish. About so big,’ and he let go of her arm for long enough to show the dimensions.

‘Oh, well, we’ll just have to have a good look,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘Come on, now, Mr Kuryakin.’

Illya suppressed a growl. He didn’t like being spoken to as if he were a dog. He just took the woman’s arm again and followed her to the carousel, where they had to wait until almost everyone else had retrieved their luggage before his could be identified. He was tired and fed up and he just wanted to go home, and the woman wouldn’t even let him carry his own case once she got it. But as they walked through into another great echoing area he heard such a wonderfully familiar voice saying, ‘Mr Kuryakin! Over here!’

His shoulders relaxed, and he sighed.

‘That’s my personal assistant,’ he told the woman guiding him. ‘Thank you. She’ll help me now.’

A moment later he was in the reassuring presence of Sarah, who was saying, ‘Here’s your case, Illya. Why, where’s your cane?’

‘The airline  _ lost _ it,’ Illya said tartly, hoping the stewardess was still in earshot. ‘Don’t worry. I will be lodging a complaint tomorrow. I have my spare in my case. If there’s somewhere I can put it down...’

‘Oh, just over here,’ Sarah said quickly, guiding him. ‘There’s a counter.’

So Illya reached out for the counter and put the case down, unlocked it, and found his folding cane, which Napoleon had thoughtfully packed right on top.

‘I won’t let them take it again,’ he said, straightening out the spare cane and tapping it to the ground. He didn’t like having to use his spare. It felt different, it was weighted differently, and everything felt different through it. ‘They’d better find it and get it back to me.’

‘If you speak to them in that voice I’m sure they’ll go to the ends of the earth to get it to you,’ Sarah said in an amused tone, and just as she was speaking those words a man’s voice called, ‘Mr Kuryakin! Mr Kuryakin!’ and he reached Illya breathlessly, saying, ‘Mr Kuryakin, we’ve found your cane. Some scamp of a boy ... father’s threatening to take him out to the woodshed ... it  _ is _ yours, I think...’

And Illya reached out and touched the familiar handle. ‘Yes, that is it,’ he said, keeping a Siberian chill in his tone. ‘Thank you.’ He folded the spare cane away, and sighed. ‘Sarah, will you take me home? I assume Mr Waverly will allow me one night of peace before I have to face his reckoning?’

‘One night, I think,’ she confirmed. ‘He wants to see you tomorrow morning. Come on. The car’s right out front.’

  


((O))

  


The heater was on full blast but his feet were so cold. It was such a change from Egypt, and even from the wet of Ireland. The snow was falling so thickly that Sarah was driving at a snail’s pace, as were all the other cars around. The snow seemed to muffle everything as they drove through Queens, even the horns that tooted regularly, and they sat in traffic on the bridge for a full half hour. Illya sat with his arms huddled around his body and not much urge to talk. He felt bad that Sarah had been dragged out to act as his taxi driver when he could have got a cab. He always felt bad to have a woman driving him.

‘You know, it’s not  _ all  _ that bad, Illya,’ she tried to reassure him after a long while of silence. ‘Mr Waverly worries about you, that’s all. When he heard about the gunfire he was afraid for your safety.’

Illya grunted. ‘When I could see, Sarah, Mr Waverly would have happily sent me against a battalion of sharp shooters, if it had been to U.N.C.L.E.’s benefit. I don’t like being mollycoddled because I am blind.’

‘No, I know,’ she said patiently, slowing down again. The tyres shushed through slushy snow.

‘Where are we now?’ Illya asked impatiently. He hated not being able to tell, and he was used to Napoleon giving him quiet little updates without being asked.

‘Just coming off the bridge. We should be back soon.’

‘We’ve been driving for two hours,’ Illya groused. ‘I always feel that in this sort of weather driving is best left to – ’

‘Illya, if you say driving is best left to a man I shall take your cane and snap it in half and throw it through the window,’ Sarah told him tersely. ‘Then I will step out of the car and leave  _ you _ to drive. I have done you a favour by coming to pick you up. It’s almost eleven at night, and there’s not a cab to be had. You wouldn’t have enjoyed sleeping at the airport.’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Illya admitted. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah. It’s been a long day. I’m not sure what time zone my body’s stuck in, but it’s not EST. I’m exhausted.’

He had been so close for a moment to snapping, to raging at her, to shouting that he was sick of relying on favours done by other people, sick of relying on cab drivers and helpful stewardesses and personal assistants who gave up their time off to ferry him around. But he had swallowed all of that and apologised, because alienating Sarah would be a really stupid thing to do. But he wished he could. He wished he could let the lid of the volcano blow and storm away from the car, slamming the door behind him. He was at the end of his tether. Napoleon was really the only person he could break down in front of like that, and Napoleon was miles and time zones away.

  


((O))

  


It was too late to order take out. It felt too late to do anything, but Illya was hungry, and even the worst mood in the world didn’t stop him from wanting to eat. He didn’t want to wait for something to cook from frozen from the freezer, so he poked around at the contents of the fridge, trying to discern what was edible and what was not. It was true that he could smell mould, but when things were chilled it was hard to smell anything. In the end he just cooked himself a dish of pasta and covered it in a tomato sauce made from tins and grated some rather hard cheese over the top. It wasn’t great, but it was food. He took it into the sitting room and carefully lit the fire, and sat there on the rug right next to the fire guard, spooning the pasta into his mouth and drinking from an anonymous bottle of wine that he had slipped from the wine rack. When he was full he pushed the bowl aside and lay back on the thick fur rug, feeling the heat flickering along his left side, feeling the chill of an apartment left empty on his right. The heating always took time to kick in.

Oh, he missed Napoleon tonight. He was so tired, he hardly knew which way he was facing, and everything was harder when he was tired without sight. Had he really been in Ireland this morning? Had he made love with Napoleon in that big brass-framed bed last night?

He loosened his tie and shoved it away, then took off his shirt as the fire pushed more warmth into him. He remembered the last time he had made love to Napoleon here, right in front of this fire, on this soft rug. There was a little patch there, a bit of hardness in the fur, that must have been left behind after Napoleon had cleaned up. He felt his watch to see what time it was, then tried to remember if he had changed it for Eastern time or not. He thought he had. It was one in the morning, New York time, so as far as Irish time went it was more like six and Napoleon should be waking up soon, or would be if he were more of a morning person.

He shouldn’t have lit the fire. Now he had to worry about it until it went out. He didn’t usually light it if Napoleon wasn’t going to be back before he went to bed. But it was faintly ridiculous to think he couldn’t tend a simple fire. He poked the charred logs to be sure they were well back from the front, made sure the guard was properly in place, and left it. He took his suitcase through to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, then opened the case on the bed, looking for his pyjamas.

He felt something in there that was definitely not his. It was soft, probably cashmere, a sweater. He drew it out and pressed it against his face and inhaled.  _ Napoleon. _ It was rich with the scent of Napoleon, his aftershave, his sweat. He pulled it on over his bare torso and hugged his arms around himself, hugged the scent into himself. But it was a thin feeling. There was no one there. He pulled the sweater off again and balled it up and just hugged it.

Oh, this was ridiculous. He found his pyjamas and put them on, then slipped into the bed that was chill from being empty for too long. He moved his hand over to the other side of the bed, where Napoleon usually lay. He had the cashmere sweater balled up under his arm like a teddy bear, and he appreciated it so much. He picked up his communicator then and opened a channel to Napoleon.

‘Good morning, Napoleon,’ he said sleepily, and Napoleon replied just as sleepily, ‘Morning, Illya. Is it morning?’

Illya smiled. ‘I thought you might be awake already. It’s one here. Six where you are. You told me to call you when I got in.’

Napoleon sounded barely awake. ‘Hmmm, you just got in? Took you long enough.’

Illya grimaced. ‘It was a bitch of a journey,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been back an hour. I’m going to sleep now, but you told me to call. Any time.’

‘Yeah, any time,’ Napoleon echoed. ‘I did. Any time.’ There was a moment of silence, then he said, ‘Hey, it’s still raining.’

‘Snowing here. Thick. I thought we might not make it back over the bridge. But we did. I suppose I was lucky the plane wasn’t diverted.’ Suddenly he felt so enormously tired. ‘Sorry, Napoleon. I have to sleep. You should get more sleep.’

‘Yeah, sleep. Sleep is good.’

‘Thank you for the sweater, Napoleon,’ Illya said, bringing it up to his face and inhaling Napoleon’s scent.

‘You know, I want to come home and find you wearing it and nothing else,’ Napoleon replied with a smile in his sleepy voice.

‘I know,’ Illya said. ‘I love you, Napoleon. Good night.’

‘Good night, sweetness,’ Napoleon said, and Illya sleepily capped the communicator and huddled himself around that sweater, and fell into dreams.


	12. Chapter 12

Another cab, and Illya had to face the embarrassment of not knowing which notes were which in his wallet, and just holding a sheaf out to the driver and trusting him to take the correct one and give him the correct change. He had woken up barely before nine, heart thudding with that awful feeling of having overslept, his internal clock having no idea what the true time was. He had forgotten to set the alarm clock. If it hadn’t been for the battery powered clock in the living room striking nine as he stumbled into the kitchen he would have still had no proper feeling of the time, and he silently thanked Napoleon for getting that clock in the early days, before Illya had a tactile watch.

To compound matters there really wasn’t anything he could find to eat in the kitchen. The last of the bread was beyond stale, and there was no milk for cereal and no time to cook anything. So he just resignedly called a cab and shaved and got dressed and was at HQ by nine thirty for his meeting with Waverly, hungry and full of dread.

‘Ah, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly said as he entered the office. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well. I’d rather feared you might resemble a colander.’

Illya managed a tight kind of smile as he tapped across the room and put a hand on the back of one of the chairs at the big round table.

‘Oh, no, I thought we’d sit somewhere more comfortable,’ Waverly said, coming to him and putting a hand on his arm. He steered Illya over to the low sofa and armchair, and Illya sat down, feeling rather disconcerted. Waverly wandered back across the room and called through to his secretary to bring coffee, which was the one small glimmer of joy in all of this. Illya needed coffee this morning.

‘I’m sorry I pulled you out of that affair, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly said in a rather confidential voice, finally sitting down. ‘I really am. But honestly, gun fights in Irish pubs? That’s no place for you to be. I should have trusted my first instinct and sent you home directly you were no longer needed in Cairo. There’s no need to expose you to risks like that.’

Illya cleared his throat. He felt intensely awkward.

‘Sir, I have spent my entire career as an agent being exposed to risk,’ he said quietly. ‘I really don’t see how this is any different.’

Waverly huffed. ‘Mr Kuryakin, I don’t have to spell it out for you. You’re blind now. We’re both very aware of this. You’re not armed. You cannot defend yourself. I cannot allow you into situations where you could be at risk.’

Illya felt his heart sink down to the soles of his shoes. How could he argue with this? The answer would always be _you’re blind now_ , and blind people were to be protected, cosseted, wrapped in cotton wool. He was not even to be accorded the faith that a sighted innocent was given in this type of affair. It didn’t matter that he was trained and seasoned and fully aware of all of the dangers. He was blind.

The secretary came in with coffee, and Illya took his cup gratefully. The coffee was good, of course, and he felt like he needed the caffeine, but it didn’t make things much better.

‘Am I to assume that I’m restricted to the office and labs again, sir?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice very professional.

There was a short space of silence, then Waverly said, ‘No, indeed, Mr Kuryakin. Not at all. I was quite satisfied with your work in Cairo. You did excellently. You are sans pareil, I think, in monitoring audio equipment. But it is to be understood that you do not leave that duty. It’s all very well you running off to that grain warehouse – ’

‘Napoleon might have been dying,’ Illya cut across his boss.

‘But he wasn’t. You might have been shot.’

‘I might have been shot a thousand times in my career,’ Illya argued, knowing he was on shaky ground, but not able to help himself.

‘Oh, have something to eat, do,’ Waverly said rather impatiently. ‘There’s a plate of croissants in front of you. Mr Kuryakin, I _cannot_ conscience exposing you to unnecessary danger.’

Illya was hungry, but he ignored the offer of food. He felt so frustrated. This was better than he had expected, if Waverly was going to continue to allow him on surveillance missions, but he was so close to snapping over the ridiculous protectiveness that said he was not allowed to get hurt.

‘Mr Kuryakin, let me explain this from a different angle,’ Waverly told him, then interrupted himself more impatiently still to say, ‘Do have a croissant. You don’t strike me as a man who’s eaten this morning.’

Illya reached out and felt the heat rising from the plate under his fingertips. He took a croissant and tore into it an a rather irritated way. But, oh, it was good. Waverly only ordered from the finest bakers.

‘All right, Mr Kuryakin. Perhaps now you have something in your mouth you’ll stop arguing and listen to me. In that fire fight in the Irish pub, Mr Solo was up against two armed men, long-term Thrush employees, it seems. If there had been any hint that you were associated with Mr Solo you would have been a target as well as him. Now, you are unable to defend yourself. I’m aware that you still hold top ranks in physical combat, but only in certain full contact areas and only in offence. You cannot anticipate a punch, nor throw a punch, can you? And you are unarmed. In a gun battle you are defenceless. In that kind of situation any U.N.C.L.E. man or woman would be bound to defend you as well as themselves, as well as any innocents in the arena. They cannot be expected to do that – and you know that they _would_ do that, no matter how much you protest that they need not. Your presence during combat is a liability for any U.N.C.L.E. agents who happen to be there. _That_ is why I cannot let you be with Mr Solo in that kind of situation. It is as much for his protection as it is for yours, and I would have thought _that_ would be a concept you could agree with.’

Illya held half a croissant between his fingers, and nodded slowly. No matter how much he wanted to argue, he knew that Waverly was right.

‘Yes, sir,’ he admitted. ‘Yes, it is. I’m sorry, sir.’

‘So am I, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly said, and he sounded absolutely sincere. ‘There are very few agents in this organisation who rival you and Mr Solo either separately or as a team. I’ve said it before. It was a great loss when you were taken out of active service.’

Illya crumbled bits of pastry between his fingertips. ‘Do I have a plate, sir?’ he asked, and Waverly said, ‘Oh, yes. It’s here, just here,’ and he handed him a side plate, guiding Illya’s hand to it with a firm touch of his own aged fingers. His skin was cool and papery.

Illya put the croissant down at last, then, and wondered how to broach what Dr Bruner had said to him.

‘Sir, there was an ophthalmological conference in that hotel in Cairo,’ he began.

‘Really, Mr Kuryakin?’ Waverly asked. ‘Something of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I – Well, I got talking to a doctor there, the Dr Bruner who came with me to find Napoleon. He – ’ Illya swallowed. Why was he so nervous of saying this? ‘Well, he believes that I might be suitable for a corneal transplant, sir. He thinks that sufficient healing has gone on to make it viable.’

It was the first time he had spoken about that out loud to anyone but Napoleon, and it made it feel almost real. His stomach lurched at the thought. It couldn’t be real, he couldn’t allow himself to hope. But there was hope. It crept in light like through the cracks, like a vicious betrayer inveigling itself into his mind.

‘ _Really_ , Mr Kuryakin?’ Waverly asked again. ‘Then there is hope that your vision might be restored?’

‘He can’t give an absolutely positive prognosis,’ Illya admitted, ‘but he wants to put me down on the waiting list for transplants. If he does – ’

‘U.N.C.L.E. will foot the bill, of course,’ Waverly said quickly. ‘You were injured on duty and it is this organisation’s responsibility to pay for your care. Well. Well, keep me posted, Mr Kuryakin. I imagine it will be a drawn out process, at any rate.’

‘I imagine so,’ Illya agreed. Drawn out, difficult, scary…

‘I’m glad you came in so we could straighten out this issue, Mr Kuryakin,’ Waverly said. ‘But I expect that you’re quite tired after your journey. I don’t want to see you back in here until the day after tomorrow. After all, tired agents make mistakes.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Illya said. Part of him just wanted to go down to the office and throw himself into his work, but Waverly was right. Tired agents did make mistakes.

  


((O))

  


He took a cab out to Brooklyn despite the snow. He wasn’t sure if it were nostalgia or sentimentality or just because with Napoleon away he had little to do with himself, but he had a fancy to go to the little Russian shop there and get tea and a few other things while the weather was clear. He would have to go shopping anyway, since he had nothing to eat in the apartment, and he refused to live on take out until Napoleon returned.

He stepped out of the snow and into the shop and called, ‘Mrs  Ponomareva?’

‘Ah, Illya, Illya,’ she greeted him, coming across the shop to him and taking his arm to guide him through into the little back room. It had become a ritual since that first time he had come in blind that she would take him through and serve him tea, and they would talk and talk in their own language.

‘Now, it has been too long since I’ve seen you. Let me get the tea started. You take it with honey today, yes? You look like you need some good Ukrainian honey in your tea.’

As she lit the samovar the shop bell rang, so she excused herself to go and deal with the customer. She returned just as the water started to boil.

‘So, Illyusha, how have you been looking after yourself?’ she asked, leaning forward towards him in her chair. ‘Not well enough. You look so tired.’

He smiled a little. He felt tired, so he supposed it was no surprise if he looked tired.

‘Well, I just got in off a transatlantic flight last night, Mrs Ponomareva. Those things are tiring.’

‘You’ve been travelling? With your Mr Solo?’

Illya inclined his head. ‘Something like that. It was business. Mr Solo is still away. I don’t have a scrap of food in the house, and I’ve run out of tea.’

‘The tea, I can help with. And lunch, Illya. You must stay for lunch, and I’ll feed you up nicely. What would your mother think if she saw you so tired and thin, eh?’

So Illya stayed and drank honey-sweet tea and ate hot, delicious food, but he wished that Napoleon were home. It was good to eat food like this and to talk in Russian with someone, but there were so many thoughts whirling in his mind and he desperately needed to vent them all.

‘What is it, Illya?’ Mrs Ponomareva asked him eventually. ‘You are hardly talking. You look like a man with the world on his shoulders.’

Illya sighed and shrugged and turned his cup in his hands, feeling the heat through the thin bone china. ‘I’ve been offered the possibility of surgery that will restore my sight,’ he said.

‘Oh, Illya, but that is wonderful. Why do you seem so sad?’

He shook his head. ‘Mrs Ponomareva, do you remember my visits early on after I lost my sight? You remember me telling you I had appointments with various ophthalmologists, and then next time I would come to your shop – ’

‘Ah.’ And she patted her hand on his knee. ‘You would come in and you would tell me it had come to nothing. You seemed two inches shorter on those days.’

Illya shook his head, holding his hands around the delicate cup of sweet, strong tea. She always gave him tea in the same cups, delicate and contoured with little ripples of fluting that ran up to the rim. There was probably gilt on the edge and perhaps little transfers of flowers under the glaze. He had sat there before holding one of those cups, telling Mrs Ponomareva that another ophthalmologist had wiped away his fragile hopes, hardly knowing how to go on.

‘I don’t know if I have the strength to do it again,’ he confessed. ‘I just don’t know...’

And this was where the breakdown happened, here in Brooklyn in front of this kind, motherly Russian woman, and he was shocked at himself for his weakness, but he couldn’t stop the tears. He bent his head down to his hands and shook and tried to stay quiet, to give himself some measure of privacy. He felt her hand on his shoulder, and he straightened up, whispering, ‘I don’t know how to go through that again.’

And then her arms were around him, and oh, she felt like his mother, she even smelled like his mother. He shook against her and she stroked his hair and whispered things in Russian to him, and he remembered that Ukrainian doctor in the hospital all that time ago who had been so kind. This had been such a long, hard journey. He couldn’t turn away from this opportunity. He just couldn’t. But it was so hard letting himself hope again.

‘I just – ’ he tried to explain, wiping a hand over his eyes under his glasses. ‘I don’t know – I’ve built such a high wall. I’ve done everything I can to adapt. Every little thing, I learnt again. And the only way I could bear it was to tell myself that there was no chance that I would ever see again. If I think about seeing, if I think about what I’ve lost and what other people have, I hate what I become. I’m just a small, bitter, blind man.’

Mrs Ponomareva sat back from him and stroked his cheek, wiping away tears. Then she closed her hands around his.

‘You want to take this chance to see, little boy,’ she said. ‘If you were my boy I would be telling you go, do this thing. Hope.’

The tears jerked through him again. Hope was such a hard thing. ‘But when it’s over and my hope is all gone again?’

‘What if it is not?’ Mrs Ponomareva asked him. ‘What if it works?’

He pushed his hands hard over his face, knocking his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes.

‘Ah, your poor eyes,’ the Russian woman said as he dropped his hands. He realised she had probably not seen him without the sunglasses on since he lost his sight. ‘You see a blizzard.’

He half smiled. ‘Something like that,’ he shrugged, pulling the glasses back down again.

‘Illyusha, if there is a chance that this operation will work, you must take it, yes?’

‘Yes, I know,’ he sighed. ‘And I will. But it’s a hard road.’

‘Many roads to beautiful places are hard roads,’ she told him, and she brushed a strand of hair from his face and rubbed his arm. ‘But you are a strong young man. And you don’t take this journey alone, do you? You have your Mr Solo. When will he be home?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Illya shook his head. He felt tired. The jet lag was catching up with him again. ‘Soon, I hope. Mrs Ponomareva, I’m sorry for such a display. I’m not usually so silly.’ 

‘You have cause, Illya,’ she told him. ‘I feel honoured that you trusted me with your troubles.’

‘May I trust you with one more trouble?’ he asked, bringing out his wallet and a pocketful of change. ‘My money is all mixed up. Can you separate it for me so I can put the foreign currencies away? I can’t tell the difference by touch.’

‘Of course I will,’ she promised. ‘And then I will get you your tea to take home with you, and a few other things that you will have as a treat. You said you have no food at home? I will tell Konstantin to stay in the store and you and I will go grocery shopping, and I will send you home with your arms full. When you are at home tonight you will think of me and know that you have friends who think of you, yes?’

Illya smiled at the scope of this woman’s generosity, and he sat and finished his tea while she sorted his change. Then he walked with her to a grocery store that he had never been in before and let her help him buy a bag full of necessities to give him dinner and breakfast. She piled another bag with things from her shop and refused all payment, and saw him into a cab, kissing him on both cheeks and making him promise to let her know how things went with him. And he went home and struggled back up to the apartment with his two big bags of food, and sat down on the sofa for a few minutes, and woke up three hours later to his communicator warbling.

‘Oh, oh,’ he exclaimed, muzzily coming awake, patting at his breast pocket. As he moved his foot nudged into one of the grocery bags, and he remembered the shopping. At least there was nothing frozen in there, but he wished Napoleon were here, because Napoleon always helped him identify the tins after he brought them home if he hadn’t packed them carefully enough to remember what each one was. It wasn’t always possible to remember. Perhaps he could ask a neighbour if he needed to…

Oh, the communicator! It was still warbling, and he pulled it out and assembled it carefully.

‘Kuryakin here.’

‘Illya, Napoleon. Are you at home? I tried calling you an hour ago and you didn’t answer, so I called HQ and they said you left ages ago. Are you all right?’

‘Oh, I must have slept through it,’ he mumbled, still blinking sleepily. ‘I fell asleep right on the couch, Napoleon. The journey catching up with me. I’m sorry. I’m all right.’

He heard Napoleon’s relieved sigh. ‘Well, I’m finished up here, Illya, at long last. We found the place they were using as an airfield. We’ve cleared it out and shut it down. Nial, the guy from Dublin, he was actually very good. Not as good as you, but – ’

‘Napoleon, you do not need to qualify every compliment towards another agent against my abilities,’ Illya reminded him.

‘Well, it’s true. But he was good enough. There were a handful of guys there, the pilot and some mechanics. They’ve all been taken back to U.N.C.L.E. Dublin, and I’ll be on the next flight out.’

‘From Dublin?’

‘Yeah, from Dublin. Faster than driving back across the country to Shannon. You met with Waverly, didn’t you? I couldn’t get anything out of his secretary about what he said.’

Illya smiled a little then. ‘It’s all right, Napoleon, or as all right as it can be. He was – well – very firm about the thought that I shouldn’t be exposed to any danger – ’

‘Well, I’m on his side there, Illya,’ Napoleon interrupted instantly. ‘I don’t want to see you put in harm’s way.’

Illya grimaced. ‘Napoleon, you do remember my days as an active agent, don’t you? The amount of times I was shot at, hung up, beaten up, broken, burnt? Do you remember that?’

‘Yes,’ Napoleon replied. ‘I remember when they burned the palms of your hands with cigarettes, and I remember when you got knifed through the thigh, and I remember when you were shot and I thought you were going to die – more than once. I remember when both your arms were broken and when that Thrush man stamped on every finger of your right hand, and when you were whipped by Mother Fear. And I remember when that man threw acid into your face and you crouched there screaming at the pain, and I had to leave you there because I had my duty to clear out that rat’s nest regardless of how badly you were hurt. None of that, Illya,  _ none of that  _ makes me want to see you put in harm’s way again.’

‘Because I am blind?’

‘ _ Because I love you _ ,’ Napoleon corrected him.

Illya sighed. ‘I love you too, Napoleon, but you know that I don’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool just because my eyes don’t work. But this is all academic,’ he interrupted himself before Napoleon could speak again. ‘As I said, Mr Waverly was firm on the thought that I shouldn’t be in danger, but he did say he would allow me to do more surveillance missions. So there’s that. And I told him what Dr Bruner said, Napoleon. I told him about the possibility of surgery. He assured me that U.N.C.L.E. would cover the costs, if it happens.’

‘ _ When  _ it happens,’ Napoleon said softly, and Illya shook his head.

‘Napoleon, please. If it happens. Let us leave it at that.’


	13. Chapter 13

Illya was there to meet Napoleon at the airport, hoping that Napoleon would see him, because there was no chance he would see Napoleon. The snow had eased a little and the cab journey hadn’t taken so long, and a helpful man had taken him through to the arrivals lounge and found out which gate Napoleon would be arriving at, so there should be no problem. He had told Napoleon that he would meet him. The flight was announced, one among a myriad of announcements that filtered through the general hubbub and chatter, and then the noises swelled as people came in, as voices rose in greeting. And then Napoleon was there saying, ‘Ah, you’re a sight for sore eyes, _tovarisch_. Thank you for coming,’ and Illya smiled and wished that he could kiss Napoleon like any other couple. But he could hug him, and he did, throwing his arms around the chill of his overcoat and squeezing hard and murmuring in his ear, ‘I missed you,’ and Napoleon said back, ‘I missed you too,’ not bothering to keep his voice down at all, because that was Napoleon, and he had no shame.

Then he stepped back and asked, ‘Do you have your cases?’

‘Yeah, I got a trolley. It’s just over there.’

But he stood there for a moment with his hands on Illya’s shoulders, silent, and Illya asked, ‘What’s up?’

Napoleon laughed quietly. ‘I was just thinking how I love the fact that you are just small enough that your nose is perfectly at the height of my mouth. So I can do this.’ And he leant forward and kissed Illya on the tip of his nose.

‘Napoleon!’ Illya gasped, scandalised. ‘There are people watching.’

‘They’re all too engrossed in their own hellos to care a whit about ours,’ Napoleon told him. Illya rubbed his hand over his nose. He felt as if Napoleon’s lips had branded him, and suddenly he couldn’t wait until they were behind closed doors.

‘Come on, let’s get a cab,’ Illya said. ‘Let’s go home.’

So they went outside and Illya felt new, thick flurries of snow driving down from the sky, and Napoleon sighed.

‘Taxi rank is completely empty,’ he said. ‘Maybe we lingered too long over our hellos. Illya, let’s just get the train. It’s freezing cold and by the looks of things the snow’s only going to get worse.’

‘Oh, Napoleon, we have three cases to carry,’ Illya groused, but Napoleon said, ‘No, I’m exhausted. I’m not standing here half an hour waiting for a cab that’ll get stuck in traffic for hours. At least there’s no snow on the subway.’

‘Those bits of it which are actually sub...’

‘Nevertheless.’

And Illya could tell that Napoleon was set on this, so he sighed and bowed to the pressures of jet lag and weariness, and said, ‘All right, we’ll get the subway. But please don’t slip on the snow and throw me under a train.’

‘Never,’ Napoleon promised.

 

((O))

 

Illya really did hate the subway. Things that had never bothered him before; the turnstiles, keeping hold of his ticket, the platform edge, the crowds, the rushing trains; they all set him on edge. He felt bad that Napoleon was managing all three cases so that Illya could use his cane, because he really hated not to use his cane in a place like that. It was moments like this, standing on the platform waiting for the next train to come in, the snow lashing at his face and shivering against the cold, that made him think it would be all right to push aside all his doubts and fears and embrace Dr Bruner’s hope without question. If he could see he would have driven to pick Napoleon up, and they wouldn’t be standing here now in the icy wind, and an oncoming train suddenly filling his ears with a rush and a bellow, holding one of the cases now so Napoleon would be able to get through the doors when they opened. Then Napoleon said in a stressed voice, ‘All right, Illya, it’s stopped. Doors are open. Keep going forward, about two feet. Watch out for the gap. It’s just a little step.’

‘I don’t like the subway,’ Illya took the opportunity to mutter, as his cane flicked over the edge of the platform, the gap, the sill of the door. He tried to find his way into the mill of people already on the train, a case in one hand and his cane in the other.

‘I know you don’t, honey,’ Napoleon said with his mouth very close to Illya’s ear. At least that meant he was on the train too now.

‘Are there any seats?’

‘Er – I don’t know. I can’t see a damn thing, there are so many people...’

Illya resisted a tart comment. He just held the cane close in to his body and held the case in the other hand, and then was almost lurched off his feet as the train started out of the station.

‘Steady there,’ Napoleon said, running a hand down to catch Illya’s hand, taking the case and then holding his hand firmly. ‘Step forward a little.’ Then he raised his voice and said politely to someone else, ‘Excuse me. Could I ask you to make a little space for my friend? He’s blind, and needs to hold on. Ah, thank you. Illya, step forward a little.’ And he moved Illya’s hand out to a pole. ‘Got that? Hold on, won’t you?’

‘I hate the subway,’ Illya said again in a low mutter. He felt self conscious as always at Napoleon drawing attention to his blindness. ‘We should have waited for a cab.’

‘Illya, it was _freezing_ out there.’

‘Hmm,’ Illya said.

‘I’ll buy your favourite take out when we get back,’ Napoleon tried to mollify him. He had his arms on either side of Illya and was holding onto the pole too. Illya couldn’t exactly say he didn’t like the position, because Napoleon was pressed up against him with the length of his body.

‘We are going to have to stand the whole way, aren’t we?’ Illya asked.

‘Well, I could probably get you a seat if you really want one...’

‘ _You_ are the one who has just come off a transatlantic flight, Napoleon,’ Illya said, uncomfortable because he knew Napoleon meant that he could get someone to give up a seat to a blind man.

‘ _You’re_ the one who’s complaining,’ Napoleon countered.

Illya grabbed the pole a little harder as the train rattled over an inconsistency in the rails, and pressed himself back just a little more firmly against Napoleon.

‘I like to complain,’ he said. ‘It keeps me healthy.’

‘Oh, is that why you do it?’

‘Well, something like that,’ Illya murmured. ‘Maybe we could get off at the next stop and try to get a cab from there?’

‘I’ve already paid for two tickets all the way into Manhattan, Illya. We are not getting a cab.’

So Illya sighed and held on to the pole. If they had been in the back of a cab he could have slipped his hand over onto Napoleon’s thigh in the dark. They would have been back so much more quickly – although he knew that would not be true, with the snow sending everything to a standstill as it was. But at least here Napoleon could put his hands almost over his own on the pole and press up against him in the guise of trying to keep him steady on his feet as the carriage swayed.

‘If I could see, I would have driven to pick you up,’ Illya commented, and Napoleon’s hands closed a little more firmly over his, and he leant in more closely so Illya could hear his low voice over the clattering of the train and the noise of the passengers.

‘You probably would have been stuck in snow.’

‘The cab I took didn’t get stuck,’ Illya said. ‘Really, I’m not sure what use there was in me coming for you. I’m only making it harder to get back.’

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said. ‘No Russian broods. I forbid it. It was worth you coming to see your face when I came through the gate. Now, have you thought any more about what Dr Bruner has offered you?’

Illya laughed a quick, short laugh. ‘It’s the only thing I _can_ think of, Napoleon.’ He groaned and shook his head, feeling the side of Napoleon’s face against his, he was so close, thanks to the crushing conditions in the carriage. ‘I will contact the American ophthalmologist. I have to. Of course I do. I will let him do his tests and if the results are right I will let Dr Bruner put me on his waiting list.’

Of course he would. He had to. He wanted to see Napoleon’s face, see his eyes. He wanted to be able to stand on this train with casual ease, his eyes on the other passengers, able to find his own seat and see when the corners were coming by the way the carriages ahead curved away. He wanted to be able to drive so they wouldn’t be forced to travel on this train or by cab. He wanted to get onto an aeroplane with Napoleon and go off to far flung places and be his equal, instead of a liability who had to stay in the hotel room. He wanted it all so much that his throat ached and his chest ached, and he wished so hard that they were in private now, because it was hard to hold it all in.

‘It will be all right,’ Napoleon said, his hands over Illya’s, and Illya remembered him saying that two long years ago, sitting by his side in the hospital while his face was afire with the pain of the burns, telling him _it will be all right. I’ll look after you. You’ll be all right._ But it hadn’t been all right. Then, nothing had seemed all right. He had lain there moaning with the pain, clawing his hands into the sheets, and there was nothing to see any way he looked. They had covered his eyes in bandages, covered half his face in bandages, but even when they removed them to check his eyes there was nothing there but white. All the time they had been irrigating his eyes he had been looking through a cloud, shaking with shock, sick with the pain. And then they had put the bandages on him and they had increased the painkillers. The painkillers made him dizzy, but the pain still crept through, and Napoleon sat there with him, holding his hands, and then holding him bodily, holding him hard in his arms while Illya wept with pain and fear against him.

Napoleon had felt so good then. It had been like finding an island after being lost at sea. He had felt Napoleon’s suit jacket against him, the bulge of the knot in his tie, his head pressed against Illya’s head. He hadn’t wanted to let go, even when the nurse came in and said Napoleon would have to go now because it was far too late and Illya needed sleep. He couldn’t imagine sleeping. It was terrible to have Napoleon let go of him and walk away and leave him there in that foreign hospital. He was clear-headed enough now to just about understand the language at least. He certainly understood when they spoke to him in English. But, oh, he had wanted Napoleon to stay so badly, and Napoleon had whispered in his ear, ‘I’ll be as close as I can. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, I promise. You’ll be all right.’

He couldn’t plead. No matter how much he wanted to he couldn’t let himself plead. So Napoleon had left and Illya had fallen back onto his pillows, and the nurse had tried to introduce some normality, to offer him tea and something to eat, a meal that had tasted like ashes in his mouth, tea that tasted of nothing at all. He had felt as if he were floating somewhere very far away, somewhere in an unreal world. He hadn’t imagined being able to sleep, but perhaps they had given him a sedative or perhaps he had just succumbed to the exhaustion of shock and pain, because some time after that meal he had drifted away, and when he woke up again Napoleon was already there at his bedside, ready to hold his hands and promise him that everything would be all right.

But they had unwrapped the bandages to check on the burns while Napoleon sat there, and he had heard Napoleon hiss at the sight. The doctor had thumbed his eyes gently open and shone a light at his pupils, and still there had been nothing to see but a thick haze. He had almost panicked then. He remembered saying, ‘I can’t, I can’t. Napoleon, I can’t do this. I don’t know what to do. I can’t do this,’ and his heartbeat had been hissing in his ears and his breath had come short, and Napoleon had held his hands and stroked them and said, ‘Calm down, Illya. Calm down. You don’t have to do anything. Just try to calm down. I’ll look after you. It’ll be all right.’

How many times had Napoleon told him that over the first few weeks? Even when Illya had been screaming so hard it made his throat raw and throwing Napoleon’s china across the room Napoleon had taken hold of him and told him it would be all right. Even when he had spent all day lying face down in bed, too low even to cry, not even moving for food or the toilet, Napoleon had told him it would be all right. Illya hadn’t believed him, not once. He had believed utterly that Napoleon would take care of him. Of course he would. That was the type of person Napoleon was, caring right down to the core. But of course it wouldn’t be all right. How could it be?

And then gradually it had become a little more _all right_. Very slowly there had been short spells of time when he had felt all right. There had been the fourth, or was it fifth, time that Napoleon had persuaded him to come outside, and Illya had held on to his arm, walking very carefully in his opaque world.

‘No pressure,’ Napoleon had said. ‘Just a walk. We can wrap up warm and walk down to the park.’

‘I must look so terrible,’ Illya had replied. He knew he must, with his still healing burns and his damaged eyes, holding on to Napoleon’s arm like a child learning to walk.

‘You look like someone who’s suffered recent burns,’ Napoleon said honestly. ‘You look injured. You don’t look terrible. Anyway, you need to get out. You’ve barely been out of the apartment except for – ’

Except for the visits to the hospital in Napoleon’s car, Illya knew. Except for those other few times that Napoleon had tried to persuade him to come for a walk, just to get some fresh air, and he hadn’t been able to make it further than the lobby of the apartment building or the corner of the block. It had been winter then too, and the air had been shockingly cold and it had pinched and stung on his ravaged face. It had hurt his sensitive eyes and made tears run down his cheeks. But he tried so hard that time, walking with Napoleon, holding his arm, his head tilted down as he tried to trust in Napoleon’s guidance.

He had felt like a shuffling cripple. He had stumbled on the first kerb they had come to, and he had hated crossing the first busy road without being able to see the cars. But he had trusted Napoleon. It would be all right. He had trusted him and walked with him all the way to one of the small local parks, and sat on a bench in the chill winter wind, and almost laughed because he had made it. It had been so weird sitting there, hearing the wind in leafless branches, hearing the traffic, hearing children playing and a dog barking, all those daytime noises with no visual accompaniment. He had clenched his hands in his warm winter gloves and sat there feeling like this was some kind of weird dream, while Napoleon tried so hard.

‘There are sparrows pecking around on the path,’ he had said. ‘I think someone must have dropped some crumbs. They look starved, poor things. Maybe next time we come out I’ll bring some bread. The grass is starting to die off. It all looks a little brown, lots of mud coming where the children run around. There’s a couple of little kids over there, brother and sister, I think, all bundled up. She has a red bobble hat and scarf and gloves and he has blue. I think they must be about five and three. They’re running about having a whale of a time. Can you hear them screaming?’

So Illya had nodded. Yes, he could hear them. He couldn’t hear the sparrows and the grass might as well not be there, but the space was defined by those little kids screaming, their thudding footsteps moving from soft ground to hard and back again, and the occasional calls of their mother. The park was bounded by the sound of traffic and defined by a damp, earthy scent that was better than the car exhaust smell of the streets. He had started to have his first inkling that he could understand the space around him with more than just sight. And Napoleon, bless him, had been so wonderful, telling him all he could see and asking him if he were all right, and then deciding just as Illya was starting to feel he had had enough that it was cold and time they were walking back. He didn’t know what he would have done without Napoleon.

Standing there on the subway train with his hands around the chill metal pole and Napoleon’s hands over his, he smiled and said, ‘Maybe it will be all right. Maybe you’re right. We can give it a go.’

 

((O))

 

Illya followed Napoleon’s guidance up the long, long sets of steps from the subway platform, in Manhattan at last. Someone had offered to help carry the cases and Napoleon had actually agreed, no doubt giving the man a case that only contained clothes and shoes, not the precious cases of U.N.C.L.E. surveillance equipment and sensitive documents. It was a great help, though, because it meant Illya could hold Napoleon’s arm and use the cane, which he really felt he needed to do on the busy subway leading up to an icy street.

The air was biting when they reached ground level, and a flurry of sand-like freezing snowflakes whipped against Illya’s face. He shuddered as the snow started to go down his collar.

‘I’d ask if there were any cabs _here,_ but I suppose they’re all taken or nonexistent?’ he said.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Napoleon said, ‘but it’s not far now. Er, thank you, sir, for carrying that case but we can take it back now. Illya, will you be okay not using the cane?’

‘I will have to be,’ Illya shrugged, pushing the cane under his arm and taking one of the cases. He held Napoleon’s arm with a slightly firmer grip as they walked, wary of ice on the sidewalks. He really hated walking in this weather, but he felt sorry for Napoleon, who had to keep his head up to the wind to see where they were going.

They finally pushed in through their apartment door half an hour later, and Illya dumped the case right where he stood.

‘God, Illya, you’ve been pouting since we stepped out of the airport, and you don’t know how hard it’s been resisting your gorgeous mouth all that time,’ Napoleon said fervently. His arms slipped around Illya and Illya tilted his head up a little to let Napoleon kiss him at last. His lips were cold at first but they warmed fast, and Illya moaned a little, falling into the sensation, because if there was one thing Napoleon could do like an expert, it was kiss. Never too much pressure, never too fast. If he were rough it was a beautiful roughness built on passion, and if he were soft it was a softness of such tenderness that Illya felt ready to melt. He lost where he was for a while, because all there was in the world was Napoleon’s lips against his, his hot tongue seeking entry to Illya’s mouth, his hands pressing hard against his back. He could feel Napoleon’s arousal against him, pushing against the thin fabric of his suit trousers, pressing against Illya’s corresponding hardness. Illya’s pout had been real, but his disgruntled mood was flooded away by the sheer force of Napoleon’s love.

‘You’re freezing,’ he said, eventually breaking from the clinch.

‘We’re both freezing. I’ll light the fire,’ Napoleon said.

‘I’ll light the fire. You call for take out.’

‘All right,’ Napoleon said, but he grabbed Illya by the hands and tugged at him and said, ‘We’ll do all of that, but first, Mr Kuryakin, I am going to fuck you soundly.’

‘Oh, _you’re_ going to fuck _me_?’ Illya asked archly, but he followed the pull of Napoleon’s hands like a beacon, into the bedroom, where the smaller room was pleasantly warm from the central heating, where Napoleon tumbled Illya onto the bed with a growl and said, ‘I thought you were going to be wearing my cashmere sweater and nothing else.’

‘You’ve hardly give me the chance to change,’ Illya responded tartly. ‘Anyway, do you really want me with clothes _on_?’

‘I want you without a single thread sullying your beautiful body,’ Napoleon said fervently, using his nimble fingers to achieve just that end. But he didn’t undress himself, just stripped Illya bare and came over him, knees on either side of his thighs, bending down to kiss Illya’s mouth, his neck, his shoulders. He grazed his teeth over Illya’s nipple, and Illya arched, gasping aloud, saying, ‘All right, Napoleon, all right, I give in. _You_ fuck _me._ Now. Right now.’

He flung his arms back in surrender, rejoicing in his own nakedness as Napoleon’s harsh and chill clothing pressed against him, as Napoleon’s still clothed erection pressed against the incredibly hot and naked length of his own.

‘You are beautiful,’ Napoleon said. ‘Illya Nickolaivitch Kuryakin, you are so beautiful. And it is so good to be home, to be with you in our own bed.’

All the while he was laying kisses all over Illya’s torso, studiously ignoring his weeping erection, dropping kisses on his flanks and the upthrust bones of his hips, pushing his thighs apart and moving his lips up that soft inner skin, and Illya cried, ‘God, Napoleon, please, please...’

So Napoleon caught Illya’s wrists in his hands and brought them down to hold them hard against his sides, and Illya lay there staring into the white haze and the brightness of the bedroom light, feeling as if he were looking into heaven. And Napoleon’s mouth came down over him at last, sheathing himself over the hot, aching length of Illya’s cock, his hands holding Illya’s wrists pinned to the bed as he arched and lifted his hips. He gasped at the sensation of Napoleon’s incredibly talented tongue gliding up his length, swirling around the head, around the exquisitely sensitive rim, then taking him in again, the whole length of him, deep into Napoleon’s throat. He could hardly hold himself, he couldn’t, and he rocked his hips forward again, thrusting himself back into Napoleon’s heat every time he withdrew his beautiful mouth, trying to move his arms so he could lace his fingers into Napoleon’s hair and push him down harder, but unable to move against the pressure of Napoleon’s hands.

And then Napoleon withdrew his mouth entirely, and Illya’s cock was left bereft, bobbing, hot and slick with Napoleon’s wet, and Napoleon said, ‘Now, Illya. You are a very impatient little man. Do you know that?’

‘Napoleon!’ Illya half growled, half sobbed. He shuffled his hips, trying to angle himself towards Napoleon’s mouth again, feeling the heat of his breath. Napoleon came up to his face for a moment, pressing a kiss hard onto his lips with a mouth that tasted of Illya’s cock and pre-come, and then went back again, engulfing Illya again to the root, sucking and licking with his mouth, tracing his fingers delicately over Illya’s balls with his hand at last, so that Illya could move his own hand, grasp Napoleon’s head by the hair, stopping him from withdrawing his mouth entirely and thrusting up over and over into that wonderful heat.

‘Oh, Napoleon, I – ’ he said, but then he was coming so hard, his mouth open in a formless bellow of pleasure, his pelvis pushed off the bed, hard against Napoleon’s mouth. Some kind of atomic explosion billowed outwards through his mind.

‘Oh... god, Napoleon,’ he said at last.

‘Ah, now,’ Napoleon said breathlessly, and he knelt over Illya again, taking his hand and moving it to the rock hard length of Napoleon’s cock. Illya closed his hand about it, feeling its heat, feeling the blood pulsing through thick veins. God how he wished he could see that. He so wanted to see Napoleon’s cock. He was sure it would be the most beautiful thing in the world.

Napoleon made a sound of pleasure as Illya’s hand pumped on him, and then he gently uncurled Illya’s fingers and laid a kiss on his soft belly, and moved away for a moment.

‘Oh, bring it back,’ Illya pleaded.

‘Patience, you impetuous little Russian,’ Napoleon said, his voice a purr.

He was doing something on the other side of the room, and then he came back to Illya and knelt between his thighs. Illya drew his legs up and then Napoleon was pouring sweet smelling oil and he trailed his finger down Illya’s flat perinaeum and then circled a single fingertip around that gaspingly sensitive opening there. Illya moaned, long and low and needful. Napoleon kept circling, pressing a little harder with each pass, until slowly his finger sank into that tight ring of muscle and Illya cried out at the feeling of Napoleon’s touch inside him.

‘God, please, more,’ he begged, letting his legs drop further apart, splaying himself on the bed.

‘Turn over,’ Napoleon said gruffly, and his finger slipped out, and Illya turned himself, drawing his legs up under him, ready to do anything so that Napoleon would touch him again.

‘There, that’s it, sweetheart, that’s it,’ Napoleon said, low and soft, leaving sweet kisses on Illya’s buttocks, putting a hand flat on the small of his back, putting his other hand back to stroke about Illya’s tight ring, to slip a finger in, and then another finger. Illya pushed backwards, impaling himself on the digits, longing for them to go deeper. He needed more in there. He needed all of Napoleon’s hardness inside him.

‘Please,’ he whispered.

And then the fingers withdrew, and there was the perfect heat of Napoleon’s cock pressing against him. Napoleon was still wearing his shirt. God, he was wearing his shirt, and when Napoleon’s feet twisted over Illya’s he could feel his socks. And his cock was there at the centre of everything, so soft and hot, until Napoleon pressed forwards and made his hardness felt. Illya felt himself stretch, deliciously, an almost painful pleasure as the head of Napoleon’s cock slipped through the tight ring of muscle. He pushed his forearm against his mouth and moaned and pressed back, unwilling to wait.

‘Gently, _tovarisch_ ,’ Napoleon chided him. ‘Softly, softly. I don’t want it to all be over before it’s begun.’

So Illya bit the flesh of his forearm and held himself still as Napoleon inched forward, slipping in so gently, further and further, until Illya was stretched and filled and Napoleon’s cool, tight balls nudged against his body. There Napoleon was, filling him to the root, all of him, so hot and hard in Illya’s clenching body.

‘Napoleon, please,’ he begged. He wouldn’t be able to keep himself from moving for much longer.

Napoleon kissed the centre of his back and put his hands on Illya’s shoulders and caressed his neck. He just stayed like that, so hard and full in Illya’s body. And then he started to move, easing out until Illya was almost empty, then slipping back in just before Illya could move his hips to impale himself again. It was such an intense, slow, drifting pleasure, and Illya was sure there would be bruises on his arm where he was biting himself to keep from forcing Napoleon to go faster and harder.

Napoleon eased himself in and out for what felt like a long time, kissing Illya’s back and sides, stroking him, reaching beneath him to fondle his stiffening cock. Illya pressed his face into the bed and angled his backside upwards, spreading himself shamelessly. And then finally Napoleon started to move with more force, rocking himself away and then in again, again, again, setting up an ever accelerating rhythm. Illya moved a little again and then suddenly each glide was pressing over his prostate, and he was dizzy with the feeling of it, losing all higher reasoning, intent only on pushing himself back onto Napoleon’s cock, forcing him to go harder and faster, until the room was filled with the creaking of the bed, Illya’s low moans and Napoleon’s grunts, and the sound of Napoleon’s hips and belly slapping against Illya’s rounded behind. Illya couldn’t hold on. Napoleon’s grip was so hard around his cock, pumping mercilessly, and he came with a cry, his climax splattering his chest and the bed and making him clench down on Napoleon’s hardness inside him.

And then Napoleon was coming with a gasping cry, holding Illya’s hips so hard in his hands that it hurt, pushed right against Illya’s body, fusing them into one.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Napoleon whispered. ‘Jesus Christ.’

He held there for a moment, his hands on Illya’s hips, panting. Illya could feel the bottom of his shirt between them, tickling at the tops of his buttocks. Napoleon’s socked feet were still locked over Illya’s ankles. And then as his cock started to slip from Illya’s body he sank down to lie over him, breathing hard, sweat soaking through the thin cotton of his shirt from both men’s bodies. Napoleon kissed him softly on the neck, and Illya turned over then and drew Napoleon down onto him again and just held him, delighting in the scent of him and the feel of him so real and there in his arms.


	14. Chapter 14

It was a cold, still morning. Illya stirred from the bed, feeling sweaty after being bundled against Napoleon under the blankets, and aching a little. He slipped his feet out onto the carpet and shivered. His dressing gown was there over the back of the bedroom chair, right where he had left it, so he slipped it on and walked over to the bedroom window. When he moved the curtain a little light glared into his eyes, and he winced. He wasn’t sure where he had put his sunglasses last night. He just closed his eyes instead and slipped through the gap between the curtains so he was standing at the window. He pressed his palm to the glass, and shivered. It felt cold enough that he wouldn’t be surprised if there were ice on the other side. He remembered the beautiful swirling patterns of ice that had crept over the apartment windows back home sometimes, when it had been really cold. It didn’t get that cold often, but those few times were something precious. The swirls of ice like feathers and leaves all over the windows, and the gold of the morning sun glinting on all of those lines. It had looked like etched glass.

He wanted to see. He wanted to see just so he could tell if there were swirling frost leaves on the window, and the rising sun glinting on them. There wasn’t any way to feel those patterns. An ache rose and swelled in his chest and filled his throat. He pressed his palm harder on the glass and wondered if the heat of his blood would be melting the ice that must be on the other side. Then he slipped his fingers over the slick surface until he felt the frame and the handle, and he tried to open the window a little. It stuck, at first because of ice and then because there was something soft and heavy in the way of the opening pane, and he pushed his fingers out into the gap and felt soft, freezing snow piled at least eight inches deep on the sill.

‘Wow,’ he said softly. It was so bright out there he was sure the sky must be clear. He wished so much that he could see it, but wishing didn’t work. He knew that by now.

He shut the window before it let in too much cold, and crept back across the dark room to find his clothes. That, at least, was one benefit here. He could find his clothes without switching the light on and disturbing Napoleon, who was still deep in sleep, and probably would be until later in the morning. If he could, he liked to sleep off his jet lag that way. Illya gathered up thick slacks and a poloneck, and a sweater to put over the top, and crept out into the living room, where he stood near the warming heater and pulled his clothes on. He found his cane near the door and when he pulled on his coat he found the sunglasses in the pocket. He was sure he would need them this morning. He rummaged in the closet for a scarf and hat, and pulled them on, not entirely sure what the scarf was like but reassured in the fact that it was soft and warm. Then he took a piece of paper and scrawled a quick note to Napoleon, in case he woke up, and left the apartment with a shoulder bag slung over his arm.

‘A lovely morning, Mr Kuryakin,’ someone said to him as he tapped across the lobby and made for the door, ‘but the snow’s deep. I’d watch out.’

He paused, running through the neighbours in his head until he had identified that voice. ‘Good morning, Mrs Garetski,’ he said. ‘Have the sidewalks been cleared?’

‘They’ve been trodden down some, my dear, but not cleared by any means. Are you sure you want to go out in that?’

Illya grinned. ‘Mr Solo is just back from abroad. I need to get him his breakfast.’

‘Ah, you’re a kind man, Mr Kuryakin,’ she said. ‘Well, you take care out there, won’t you?’

‘I always take care,’ he assured her.

And he found his way over to the door and opened it, and the freezing cold hit his face like a slap. He pulled the scarf up over his mouth and nose, reflecting that really there was no reason why he shouldn’t wrap it all the way around his head. He didn’t want to muffle his ears, of course, but it was only convention that made him leave his eyes uncovered. Still, he went along with that convention. He couldn’t quite bring himself to walk around outside looking like an Egyptian mummy.

Mrs Garetski had been right. The snow was deep, only broken in a narrow line where people had followed in each other’s footsteps. But that suited him well enough. It made it hard to use the cane, but he could slide his feet along one after the other in the broken path. He was glad that there were railings and buildings close up against the sidewalk on his right to provide him with a solid shoreline to navigate parallel to, because it was almost certain that the kerb would be totally lost in the snow, and all the usual echoes from the hard surroundings would be muted to almost nothing.

He could do this, though. He hated the idea of being trapped by any weather, so he would go out in the snow just as he would if the streets were clear. At least there wasn’t a curtain of rain hissing from the sky, although rain had its own benefits in the way it made a contoured soundscape when it hit surfaces. Today the air was beautifully clear and cold in his lungs and there were almost no cars on the street. Everything was so quiet. He could hear children shrieking a distance away, but that was almost all the noise.

It didn’t take too long to get to the bakery a block away, and he stood in the warmth and the rich scents of yeast and butter and dough while the genial baker wrapped up six croissants and six pain au chocolat in paper, and then in newspaper, and then in more newspaper, and then tucked them into Illya’s shoulder bag.

‘I’m not sure I want to go outside again,’ he commented as he felt for the money in his wallet and handed it over.

The baker laughed and said, ‘Here’s your change, Mr Kuryakin,’ and he put it in Illya’s open palm. He gave it only a cursory check before shoving it in his pocket, then he pushed his gloves back on and slung the bag onto his shoulder, and gave the baker a light salute.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and he went back out onto the frigid street.

He stood there a moment facing the road, just breathing in the air. The insides of his lungs seemed to cringe at the cold. Then he turned right and tapped towards the next shop. The bakery had been easy to find despite the way snow altered the landscape, because of the scent of baking bread that filtered out through the door. The expensive little grocer’s that Napoleon loved was just a few doors down, but it took a moment of feeling along the building’s façade to find the door because the rubber doormat that was always outside was covered in snow. He went in there and the scents instantly told him he was in the right place. He asked the girl behind the counter for a tin of Napoleon’s favourite hot chocolate, and then went back into the cold, pleased with his morning’s work.

‘Illya, I am so proud of you,’ Napoleon said, very close by and low in his ear.

‘God, Napoleon, coming on me like that you should be grateful you’re not lying on the ground with a broken arm!’ Illya said indignantly, adrenaline surging in his veins.

‘As if I’d let you break my arm,’ Napoleon replied genially. ‘Ah – you know, that tartan scarf looks lovely on you. Very fetching. I didn’t know you had Scottish blood.’

‘I have warm blood,’ he replied, ‘and I wanted to keep it that way.’

‘I thought that all Russians had blood made of antifreeze. What are you doing out here in the cold, Illya?’

‘What are  _ you  _ doing out here? I left you sleeping,’ Illya growled with mock anger.

‘Ah, well, I turned over and there was a cold space in my bed where previously there had been a very warm Illya-shaped package, so I got up to find you. And being a cunning spy I followed the marks your cane made in the snow.’

Illya grimaced a little. ‘It’s nice to know I’m so easy to track down. I came out to get you some breakfast. It’s currently losing all its heat in my bag. Why are you proud of me, Napoleon?’

‘Ready to head home?’ Napoleon asked, and Illya nodded, so Napoleon slung an arm about his shoulders and turned him in the right direction. It struck Illya as they started to walk that Napoleon must be walking in the unbroken snow so that he could take the narrow broken path. ‘I’m proud of you, my clever little Russian popsicle, because if I try to imagine closing my eyes and heading out into this lot I know I would either be flat on my behind or hopelessly lost within five minutes. I’m proud of you because you’ve spent this last two years fighting so hard to regain your independence, to the point that you will even brave this kind of weather just to get me breakfast after a long flight. I’m proud of you because you’re mine, and I love you.’

‘Hmm,’ Illya said, but he glowed a little inside, not so much at Napoleon’s admiration but at his love.

‘As gracious a response as I ever expect to get,’ Napoleon replied indulgently.

‘Tell me what it looks like out here,’ Illya said, drawing his scarf a little more firmly up over his face. ‘I thought it must be a beautiful morning. Was there frost on the windows?’

‘Beautiful frost, like a paisley shawl,’ Napoleon told him.

‘And here, now?’

‘And here, now. Well, the sun is just coming up, and where it filters through the buildings the light is all golden. It’s beautiful, very pure. The sky’s clear, absolutely clear, very pale down nearer the horizon and darker at the zenith. A few airplane trails catching the sun. There are long shadows in the street, and those tongues of light. All the little hollows in the snow are blue. Not a single vehicle has gone down the street yet, so it’s like a white blanket. There are a few footprints in the snow. It’s about a foot deep. But no tyre tracks.’

‘But people have trodden down the snow on the sidewalk,’ Illya said, poking at it with his cane.

‘Yes, people have trodden that snow down. There are heaps of snow at the sides where it’s been scraped and shovelled. There are cars under little blankets of snow. All the trees are leafless and they look very black. There are a few places where steam is puffing out from vents on the buildings. All those red brick façades look like blood in the sun. A lot of curtains are still drawn, but some are open. I can see some kids looking out of one of the windows. They probably want to come out and play.’

‘They’ll come out and play later,’ Illya said. ‘We’ll hear them from the apartment. They’ll be screaming blue murder.’

Napoleon’s arm squeezed over his shoulders. ‘Grumpy Russian. Did I describe it to your satisfaction?’

And Illya smiled. ‘Yes, Napoleon. Thank you. I can imagine it now. It’s just the way I thought, but now I  _ know _ . Thank you.’

‘After the operation,’ Napoleon said, ‘You’ll be able to see it yourself.’

Illya went very quiet. He blinked his eyes behind the shading lenses of his glasses, looking into that dim blur.  _ After the operation _ . Napoleon made it sound as if it were really going to happen. And perhaps it  _ was  _ really going to happen. How strange that would be. How strange for these scales to fall from his eyes and to be able to see the world around him again. It was almost too strange to believe in.

‘After the operation,’ he repeated, slipping the tip of the cane across the trodden down snow and into the soft stuff at the side of the path. If he could see that path he could throw the cane away, he could pick up his pace, he could even run. And perhaps he  _ would _ run. Perhaps he would shout to the world and whirl and stare at the sky and the sun and the blood-red brick and the black branching trees. He could have his gun again, go on missions again, claw back his old life again.

‘It’s going to happen, Illya,’ Napoleon said.

He still couldn’t believe in that. He just couldn’t let himself believe that was the truth. It was such a fragile hope to pin everything on to. He was doing all right, with his cane in his right hand and Napoleon’s arm around him, taking careful steps on the icy ground. He could do this, he could manage. He could see in his mind’s eye the world that Napoleon had described, and it was beautiful, but if he hadn’t described it he could be content with what he had; the fresh cold air entering his lungs; the cries of playing children; the soft, muffled sound of a world under a blanket. It still felt amazing, even if it made navigation hard. Snow made everyone’s lives hard once they had got over the novelty. Napoleon would be complaining about it later just as much as he.

The hope felt as delicate as a snowflake. It would be so easy for it to melt away. He didn’t need that in his life. He needed to keep going forward, to keep living as he was, being satisfied with what he had.

‘There is one thing I’m certain is going to happen,’ Illya said, carefully putting that hope away and pressing a hand against the bag over his shoulder. ‘We are going to go home and you’re going to make that hot chocolate that you love, because I have a fresh tin in my bag, and we’re going to sit in front of the fire and drink, and eat fresh pastries that are still, I hope, warm, and we’re going to spend the day together listening to music and watching television and pretending that nothing else exists. Tomorrow we’re going to go into headquarters and work through all the reports that need to be done, and we’re going to carry on with our lives. I’ll go and see Dr Bruner’s colleague, and he can perform his tests, and perhaps good things will come of them. But whatever happens, there will be you and there will be me, and we will be all right. You always told me it would be all right.’

  
[TBC in a sequel. Soon. I hope.]


End file.
